


Our Souls Possessed By Light (Love Too Has Ruined Me)

by RayShippouUchiha



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: A lot of them - Freeform, Angst, Angst with a happy ending though, Canonical Character Death, Death of past lives, Derek Fucks Up, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Excessive use of italics, Hurt/Comfort, It'll all turn out alright, M/M, Magical Stiles Stilinski, Other, Past Lives, Peter Helps Pick Up The Pieces, Self Harm, Seriously Angst like whoa, Sick Stiles, Soul Bond, Soul Mates AU, Suicide, Tattoo Stiles, Tattoos, but it gets worse before it gets better so beware, probably
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-19
Updated: 2015-07-19
Packaged: 2018-04-05 03:26:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 24,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4163940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RayShippouUchiha/pseuds/RayShippouUchiha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>His first thought when he sees Derek is, 'you’re beautiful'.</p><p>His second is, 'I know you'.</p><p>And the third is, 'what took you so long'.</p><p>He wants to say all of those things but Derek looks him in the eyes and Stiles sees nothing in Derek’s gaze and his heart doesn’t break but it does implode, caves in on itself like a black hole, a deep infinite well of dark nothingness.</p><p>Or</p><p>When Stiles realizes that he and Derek are soulmates who've lived countless lives together across all the planes of existence he's blown away.  Until, that is, he realizes that Derek doesn't recognize him the way Stiles recognizes Derek and doesn't seem even remotely interested in trying to.  Then he just does his best to hold on for as long as he can.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Tell me how all this, and love too, will ruin us.

**Author's Note:**

> So this has been rattling around in my brain for a while now and I finally had to get it out. It started off as pure Sterek angst and then somewhere along the way I think I accidentally Steter'd. Now I'm debating on making it a Derek/Stiles/Peter or more accurately Derek/Stiles & Peter/Stiles since there would be no Derek/Peter cause that would never work.....

 

 _Tell me about the dream where we pull the bodies out of the lake_  
_and dress them in warm clothes again._  
_How it was late, and no one could sleep, the horses running_  
_until they forget that they are horses._

_- Scheherazade, Richard Siken_

~~~

Stiles is ten when he watches his mother die slowly, in terrible, painful increments.  Watches her downward spiral up close and personal _front row seats and V.I.P passes all around to the death of the woman who makes his world calm and still when he’s flying apart at the seams_.

It’s summer time and his dad is at work even when he doesn’t want to be _which is all the time and never now because he can’t bear to see what’s happening to Claudia but he can’t bear to look away sometimes either and a part of him hates her for that_.  So that leaves plenty of time for Stiles and his mother, for him and the woman who grows less and less coherent and present as the days go by.

She’s so very far from who she used to be but there are moments when Stiles can’t help but look at her on that bed and think that she’s _more_ somehow.  There are moments when he can see that there’s something _different_ about her in a way that has nothing to do with what’s killing her.

But she’s his mother and to him she’s always been at least a little bit _magical_.

And then, one day when he’s alone in the room with her yet again, she looks him right in the eye _she never does that anymore, not like she used to_ and starts talking to him.

“You’ll find them one day, like I found John.  All of us do, the ones who have that certain _spark_ inside of them.”  She runs her thumb over his knuckle and kisses the tips of his fingers like she used to when he was really small and he doesn’t understand what she means but he still _listens_.  “It’s going to be scary baby, don’t think it won’t be.  I was terrified at first, always am every time.  But you’ll get over it, you’ll adjust.  And it might go horribly wrong and … and it might _hurt_ but it’ll get better.  I _promise_ it’ll get better.  No matter what just …. just don’t give up okay?  No matter what.  Never give up.”

“I don’t understand.”  His voice is broken and scared and so _young_.

“That’s okay baby you will.  You’ll understand one day.”  She has that faraway look in her eyes for a moment and then she brushes it off even though her eyelids look heavy, drooping down over her dull amber eyes.  “You’re gonna meet someone and you’ll look at them and you’ll realize that you can _see_ it and then you’ll _know_.  You’ll know they’re the one for you and no matter what happens you can’t ever give up on them.  No matter what happens you stay by them because it’ll keep them alive okay?  You’ll _see_ and you have to do what you can to make sure they’re _safe_.  No matter how much it hurts baby, no matter the price, once you _see_ you _have_ to protect them.”

“See what?”  He needs to know, needs to understand _he’s so terrified of not understanding things these days._   “What’ll I see?  Mom I don’t _understand_.”

“ _Everything_ , baby, you’ll see _everything_.  And it’ll be so _beautiful_.”  She breathes it out like a sigh and her eyes fall closed and then she doesn’t move.  Stiles tugs at her hand and then he shakes her shoulder but she’s still _so still, too still, please move_ and then Stiles _screams_.

When it’s over and she’s buried and his dad has a hard time looking him in the face _he has her eyes and her nose and her moles and smile and her hair and he shaves that off but it’s still too much and sometimes he hates his own reflection_ he still doesn’t understand what she tried so hard to tell him there at the end.

But it was the last thing she ever said to him so he remembers it.  Keeps every word pulled close to his heart.

~~~

And then, years later, Stiles meets Derek Hale face to face for the first time in the woods and is _finally_ able to understand.

~~~

He’s sixteen, his best friend is a werewolf _not that he knows that yet_ , and he sees _Derek_ and then he realizes that he _sees_ Derek in what he just _knows_ is that way his mother had warned him about.  There’s an aura of almost blinding light around him, colors leeching out into the air around his body and for a moment all Stiles can do is gape.

His first thought when he sees Derek is, _you’re beautiful_.

His second is, _I know you_.

And the third is, _what took you so long_.

He wants to say all of those things but Derek looks him in the eyes and Stiles sees _nothing_ in Derek’s gaze and his heart doesn’t _break_ but it does _implode_ , caves in on itself like a black hole, a deep infinite well of dark _nothingness_.

Derek doesn’t know him, doesn’t recognize Stiles like Stiles recognizes Derek and he’s used to being overlooked now but it still hurts _so bad_ just like she said it would.

~~~

He spends weeks waiting for Derek to come to him, to look at him like he _knows_ Stiles or at least like he _wants_ to.

But it just … doesn’t happen.

So Stiles keeps his mouth shut.

He's used to doing that now too, at least with all of the things that truly matter.

~~~

He pushes down his hurt, pushes down the creeping numbness that’s spiraling outwards from his chest and overtaking his body bit by bit, and concentrates on Scott.

Then he focuses on fires and murderers.

On hunters and a kanima.

He does his best not to focus too much on Derek, on the colors that seep out into the air around him, on how Stiles _knows_ him but Derek _doesn’t_ know him back.

But they keep getting thrown together and somewhere along the way he falls in love with Derek.  Falls in love with his spirit and how he always tries _so_ hard.  How even when he fucks up Derek’s still so _good_ and _kind_ and _earnest_ deep down beneath all the anger and the pain he carries around.

~~~

He’s in a pool when he realizes it.

He’s clutching desperately at Derek, _he’s_ _so still in his arms like his mother had been on that bed_ , and it takes all that he has not to scream and fall apart.  _Because he loves Derek, loves him deeply, violently, and Derek doesn’t see him._   A part of him wants to run away from it all, from the way that he knows Derek, recognizes him in some way he can’t describe.

But he doesn’t, _because he promised and he loves Derek and he’s never been one to leave the ones he loves.  That’s their jobs not his_.

He pulls himself together, pulls on everything inside of him to keep Derek alive, to keep them both above the water so they can do what needs to be done.  He almost doesn’t make it, almost can’t hold on long enough.  And in those last few seconds before Scott saves them Stiles knows that if Derek goes under he’ll go with him, won’t be able to bring himself to let the man go alone.  Even as he scrambles for the dive bar he feels a strange sort of peace at the idea of him and Derek ending at the same time.

Like somehow that’s how it’s supposed to be.

~~~

He does his best to act normal afterwards, to not let any of it peek through the veil that he drew down around himself that day when he sat alone in the hospital waiting room and said goodbye to his mother in his head.

What hurts worst is the fact that no one really makes the effort to _look_ at him, to see that there’s something so obviously wrong with him.

Not the Pack, not Scott, not his dad.

Not even Derek.  _Derek looks at him sometimes like he’s something strange and unquantifiable and frightening and those looks make Stiles’ heart race but there’s nothing behind them, no recognition or the sense of knowing that Stiles feels when he looks at Derek._

Not even when they’re saving each other’s lives. 

Stiles pushes that hurt down too, presses it down his chest and towards his feet.  Tries to let it seep into the ground as he buries his toes in the soil of the forest and focuses on the Spark deep inside of him that Deaton had told him about.  _His mom had mentioned it first and it took him too long to make the connection._

And then, somewhere along the way, he starts to _dream_.

~~~

Somehow Stiles knows that they’re less dreams and more like _memories_ and he _hates_ and _loves_ them because they show him so much.  _Too much.  Not enough._

They show him people that he doesn’t know but recognizes, show him lives and places and times and worlds that he should never know existed or still exist some place or in some time, but he _does_.

 _God_ he does and it makes him want to claw out his own eyes to make the visions go away because … because in each one of them is him _or a version of him at least_ but there’s also _Derek_.

In each and every one he and Derek find each other somehow.

~~~

Sometimes they’re not human.

They are wolves and hawks and creatures and beings that Stiles can barely describe not to mention put a name to.

They are wild, unfettered things that find each other in the dense dark jungles, the icy oceans and warm tropical waters, on the wide burning plains.

They fight and hunt and mate together, _always together_.

So sometimes they’re not human but it doesn’t really matter because they have each other.

~~~

Sometimes they are human though but they latch onto each other just the same.

~~~

Stiles grows up on crutches, can’t move his legs right, has never been able to walk like everyone else can and he hates that.  It makes him _different_ and people don’t like _different_.  And he’s alone and lonely and so sad all of the time that he can barely stand it.

But then he meets _Derek_.

Derek who stares past Stiles’ shoulder with unseeing eyes but still manages to see more of Stiles than anyone else ever has and Stiles loves him so much that his legs don’t matter anymore.

They date and laugh and fall deeper and deeper in love.  They marry, entwine their lives so deeply with one another that when Stiles feels his own heart begin to slow one night as they lay in bed together, seventy years of love and laughter behind them, he doesn’t even fight it.

Because he can hear the way Derek’s heart is slowing too, the beat winding down beneath the ear he has pressed against Derek’s chest and he knows that wherever he goes Derek won’t let him go alone.

And he doesn’t.

~~~

Sometimes they have each other in ways that blow his mind.

~~~

Stiles will be Queen and Derek is to be her Guard, is sent into her service by one of the higher loyal families.

Stiles is a fair haired vision of her Lady Mother and Derek has long fiery hair and full sultry lips and she captivates Stiles the moment their eyes meet across the distance at her introduction.

Their love blossoms quickly and all consuming.

Derek pursues her, woos her with songs and tributes and glorious displays of hunting and battle.

Stiles woos back, plies her needles and her threads, makes bracers out of leather and shoots a man in the throat with her mother’s bow when the thrall looks at Derek the wrong way, forgets his place in their kingdom.

And when the Goddess blesses their union underneath the moons they come together with such passion that their love is written about in sonnets for centuries after they have ruled and died together.

Before their time is up though they have many daughters who go on to have more daughters who carry on their strength and their ideals and their kingdom flourishes and is _whole_ and _good_.

~~~

And then sometimes they don’t have each other at all, never really get the chance.

~~~

They’re born at the same time that time, the same hospital even.  They spend three days in bassinets beside each other, quiet and happy and content.  They will live in the same town, go to the same schools, and know each other early, will get to live and grow and _become_ together.

And then Derek gets sick and he doesn’t get any better.

Stiles feels it when Derek dies, when he slips away in the arms of a nurse that tries frantically to save him. 

He feels it when Derek’s light goes out and fades away and he can’t sense him anymore.

In that life Stiles doesn’t make it to six months.

Instead he falls asleep in the crib in his nursery one night and just never wakes up.

~~~

There are so many different ways they have each other and don’t and Stiles is never able to be sure which ones hurt worse except for when he _is_.

Because they’re not all good or warm or clean or simple _because sometimes even death can be like that and at least that time he didn’t have to grow up in a world that never had Derek in it_ but no matter what Stiles can’t escape the memories of any of them.

He can’t stop them from running through his mind in flickers and bursts, like half-finished movie reels.

Because sometimes one of them kills the other.

~~~

They’re in their twenties and they’re both scared and Stiles wears tan and there’s a red band and a black symbol on his arm _he doesn’t want it there he swears he doesn’t, hates what they’ve made him do in the name of a man who’s ideals were never his own but they’ll kill his father if he doesn’t and there are little ones at home who still need his support so he obeys even when he wants to die because of it_. 

He can taste blood as he stares up into Derek’s eyes _because they’re always his eyes, the one thing that never changes about him even if his face or his fucking species does_ as Derek cries and shoves his bayonet deeper into Stiles’ chest.

Stiles reaches up, pets Derek’s face as he feels the black close in around the edges and in the distance there are screams and he can see fire and Derek’s eyes go wi-

~~~

Sometimes they kill each other.

~~~

Stiles has a sword in his hand and the sun beats down heavily on his back and the roar of the crowd _fucking monsters who had stolen him from his home, from his rich fertile fields and his quiet life and sent him into hell to kill other men for their pleasure, for their fucking games_ shakes his bones.

His opponent is older than he is, skin dark and hair shorn short, but his eyes are a thing of beauty and Stiles suddenly, fiercely, does not want to kill this man _not this one, never this one_.  There is something in the face that is staring at him over the edge of a thin wooden shield that says the other slave feels the same way.

Their agreement is silent, _they don’t know each other’s languages but they do not need words, not here in this hell made from other men’s greed where their lives are things to gamble on and toy with_.  They meet each other in the center of the stadium _sand and blood and Gods know what else beneath their feet_ and they ignore the way the crowd jeers as they just stare into each other’s eyes.

Derek drops his shield, reaches out and wraps the blood stained fingers of his free hand around the back of Stiles’ neck and pulls him closer.  They kiss once, right there in the middle of the stadium amongst the sour smell of countless dead, and then they press their foreheads together.

They are both crying in that moment _crying because they’ve found each other and now they’re parting again and it’s not fair_ but they both take a shuddering breath and nod together.

Stiles tightens his grip around the shabby sword in his hand, feels it when Derek does the same to the short, curved knife he holds. And when they move it is together _together in the only way they can be in this life_.  They both make small chocked out whimpers when the other’s blade bites into their stomach but they’re smiling, teeth stained with blood and eyes locked even as they fall to their knees.

_They’re dying, life blood flowing out onto the sand of the arena, but they are together, made the decision together and these fucking monsters will never have the satisfaction of owning their deaths._

They are still clasped together when their hearts stop beating.

~~~

Sometimes it’s nether but again they both die anyways because they can never bear to be apart for long.

~~~

Stiles is twenty two and she is in love with a glorious man.  Derek is twenty eight and he treats Stiles like something precious but strong, like an equal and a partner and someone worth hearing and seeing and talking to.

Stiles is pregnant with their first child and they are both so happy, so thrilled and eager to love this little person that they have made together.

She steps off the curb without looking, waves an arm above her head happily at Derek who is on the other side of the road and headed her way from the hardware store.

She hears the car at the exact same moment she sees Derek’s eyes go wide, hears him scream her name, anguish and pain and denial in his voice as he takes off running.  She knows what is going to happen before it does so Stiles keeps her eyes focused on Derek, her husband, her beautiful, loving man, and then something hits her _hard_.

Right before everything goes black she smiles because she _knows_ that somehow she’ll see him again soon.

~~~

And sometimes it all goes _horribly_ wrong and they get tangled up, made into things they should never be to each other.

~~~

Derek is his father once, _only once because whatever it is between them doesn’t make that mistake again_ , and Stiles is ten before it becomes too much for the both of them.  Their bond is too _wrong_ in that life time and they both know it and they can’t take it anymore.  But Derek loves Stiles, loves him so _so_ much that he can’t bear to hurt him like that, can’t bear to twist what they are into something hurtful and Stiles _knows_ that, loves Derek the same way.

So they have one last, _perfect_ day together.

Derek takes him out into the woods, carries him piggy back for miles and miles, lays with him in the grass of a meadow there and tries to tell him all of the things Stiles will need to know when he becomes a man.  All of the things that Derek had always needed to hear growing up.

Then they go home, have Derek’s favorite dinner, watch a movie together wrapped up on the couch in a chaste parody of what they _need_ to be to each other.

And then Derek crawls into his bed and eats a bottle of sleeping pills, _he doesn’t want to leave a mess for Stiles, doesn’t want to do that to his boy_ takes them one after another after another as Stiles holds his hand and cries.

Derek makes him promise that he’ll live, that he’ll have the life they should have had together.  Stiles cries like he’ll never stop and just whispers okay _okay okay_ until his throat is bloody and the neighbor shows up because no one has seen either of them for _days_.

In that lifetime he doesn’t talk again after they make him let Derek’s hand go.

He keeps his promise though, keeps it all the way until he’s twenty-two and he just _can’t_ anymore.  So he takes a long walk off of a short pier and doesn’t regret a second of it even when the water closes in over his head and he _sinks_.

He’s helpless to do anything else because Derek taught him so much in such a short time but he never taught him how to swim and Stiles is so _grateful_ for that.

~~~

The dreams are like torture and Stiles wakes up at night shaking, screams caught in his throat or tears damp on his cheeks _either from joy or pain it doesn’t matter because in the end they all feel the same to Stiles now_.

He barely feels human half of the time now.  Can’t with the way he’s only half living in his own world, slowly drowning in the dreams that are taking over his mind.

And he can’t really bring himself to fight their pull.

Not when he and Derek have settled into a tentative type of friendship that gives Stiles hope despite the fact that Derek still barely looks him in the eyes most of the time.

Not when this is the first life that he can remember where Derek has ignored him so often and so thoroughly.

He tries to push forward though, to remember what his mother told him, to not give up and to just keep going.  He holds the quiet, fragile, hope in his heart that all he needs to do is give Derek time, that he just needs Stiles to be patient before he’ll open his eyes and _see_.

~~~

He makes his way through high school and then through college and takes up his badge and his gun.  He pours all of the love he wants to give to Derek but can’t into being the best deputy his dad could ever ask for.  He wraps himself up in the job and the Pack and ignores invitations to dates and parties and the way his dad has started to hint about grandchildren already.

Stiles just holds onto that hope with everything inside of him.

And waits.

~~~

Stiles watches everyone move around him like he’s in a daze.  He watches them date and love and grow and does his best not to _hate_ them all because they can and he _can’t_.

Can’t think of anyone else on and in him and with him but _Derek_.

He takes a quiet kind of pained pride in the way his dad looks at him and tells him that he’ll be a shoo-in for sheriff once he finally retires in a few years.

It’s a small, bitter sort of comfort, but it’s all he really has.

~~~

He’s twenty-three when he just can’t take it anymore.

When seeing the rest of the Pack so _happy_ just cuts him open deep inside and for once he can’t staunch the bleeding.  For once he just wants to be selfish and wrap himself in his pain and wallow for a while.  Needs to.

He takes a couple of weeks’ worth of vacation time and ignores the way his dad and Scott and the Pack, even Derek and _especially_ Peter, look at him so concerned.  The way most of them seem to think he’s fragile and breakable still twists him a little bit further inside, makes him feel sharp and harsh and just a shade off mad.

They still don't see his true worth, not even after they watched him put a bullet right between a hunter’s eyes once without flinching or set an entire fae court on fire with his mind and his Spark with a dark look in his eyes and a smile on his face.

They’d all threatened Derek and Stiles _loves_ him even if Derek is only sometimes his friend in this life.  And if that is all Stiles can have from him then he’ll just dedicate this life to protecting Derek until maybe one day he can die and move on to another existence where Derek loves him back again.

So he ignores the way every looks at him, the quiet concern on Derek’s face and the knowing look on Peter’s, and he packs his bags, laughs off everyone’s questions and _leaves_.

~~~

He doesn’t really go far, just two towns over where he rents a shitty motel room for two weeks, buys his body weight in cheap liquor, and just … _lets go_.

He spends two days crying, just sobbing brokenly into the dingy sheets until he can barely breathe.  He spends the next two drunk off of his ass.  He doesn’t eat, doesn’t do anything really but sit in the dark and nurse a bottle.

Peter finds him on the fifth day.

~~~

Stiles wakes up as soon as Peter comes within a hundred yards of the motel but he doesn’t do anything, can’t find the strength or the will to for once.  Instead he just opens the door to his room while Peter’s still on the other side of the parking lot with a wave of his hand and leaves it open.

Peter swaggers in and Stiles just goes on staring at the ceiling from his place on the bed, bottle clutched firmly in his hand.  He doesn’t worry about what Peter will think because he knows that Peter of all people won’t judge him.

They’ve reached a strange kind of peace and affection over the years since Peter’s last power play had been slapped down.  Apparently the whole ‘third time’s the charm’ adage was true cause he’d never seemed inclined to try anything against Derek again.

Not since Stiles cornered him in Derek’s living room one day and pressed a wolfsbane coated knife to his throat and his lips to Peter’s ear and told him in explicit detail how he’d gut him slowly, _painfully_ , if he ever even _looked_ at Derek wrong again.  How Stiles would give him something else to fear besides fire.

“He’s an idiot.”  Peter lounges in the chair beside the bed and neither of them need to say a name to know who he’s talking about.  “You sure I can’t convince you to let me take his place, at least for a little while?”

That’s an offer Peter’s been making to him for years now when no one else can hear.  An offer of companionship and some twisted version of the love that Stiles wants and craves but not from Peter.

Stiles always turns him down but he’s also stupidly grateful for the way Peter keeps offering, keeps talking to him and _looking_ at him.  Peter sees more of him than anyone else and Stiles is pretty sure it’s because they’re both fucked up and twisted in a lot of the same places.

It doesn’t really make things _better_ but it is nice not to be completely alone in the dark all of the time.

There’s a sigh and a rustle of clothes and then Peter tugs the bottle out of his hand, puts it on the night stand, and crawls into the bed.  He wraps his arms around Stiles, pulls him against his chest and cards his fingers through his hair as he hums low and rough in the back of his throat.

Stiles buries his face in Peter’s neck and tries to pretend like he isn’t crying again.

“I always knew you were special.”  Peter states into the dark of the room.  “I could _see_ it, that Spark of yours.  But I was too power drunk to really realize what it would mean for _you_.  If I’d known I can’t say for sure what I would have done.  I just know that I would give anything to be the one you look at like you look at _him_.”  Peter sighs heavily then and the hand in Stiles’ hair tightens just enough to hurt before it relaxes.  “I know I can’t have that and I know that you’d be perfect for him if he wasn’t so _goddamn_ stupid and blind.  But I’m still completely and totally willing to fuck you until you can’t walk if you’re up for it.  And unlike Derek I won’t cry and play _Your Body Is A Wonderland_ in the background as I do it.”

Stiles can’t help himself.  He laughs, low and long and more than slightly watery because as ridiculous and creepy as Peter is and can be he also knows how to say the wrong thing in the right way just when Stiles needs to hear it.

Eventually he falls asleep like that, face buried in Peter’s throat as the wolf watches over him in the night.

~~~

He should be half dead from the alcohol the next morning but he isn’t, not with how strong and vibrant his Spark is.  So he’s perfectly normal and has no excuse to escape or plead off when Peter pulls him out of bed by his ankles _he’s such an asshole_ and tells him to “get dressed because we’re leaving this depressing _hovel_ ”.

Peter packs his bags without his permission, drags him half way across town to a disgustingly nice hotel, checks them into a penthouse suite and then takes him out to dinner.

It’s almost a date except that it’s _not_ and it’s, incidentally, exactly what Stiles needs.

They’re walking down the street arm in arm when Stiles abruptly freezes.  Peter turns to him questioningly but then he sees the shop front Stiles is staring at and leads him inside with a smirk.

The tattoo parlor is bright and clean and has some of the most _exquisitely_ detailed prints on the walls that Stiles has ever seen.  Abruptly he knows exactly what he wants, knows exactly what he _needs_ to do.

The artist, a small fae looking woman with blue hair and barely any unmarked skin from the neck down, is totally open to working with him right then and there on what he wants.

Stiles leaves four hours later with the most detailed and perfectly rendered ouroboros tattoo that he has ever seen nestled directly over his heart.  Peter stares at it with a soft look on his face as Stiles peels the bandage off of the already healed tattoo.

~~~

“How many times?”  Peter asks him when they’re twined around each other in the bed that night.  “How many times have you loved him?  How many times has he loved you back?”

“Too many to count.  Not enough.”  Stiles rasps into the dark around them, voice harsh and heavy with tears yet again.  “Every time.  We’ve always …”  Stiles trails off and has to choke back a sob by burying his teeth in Peter’s shoulder for a second before he gets himself back under control.  Peter just pets his hair through it all.  “Every time but this one.”

He doesn’t, can’t, say anything after that, _can’t because what he hasn’t wanted to admit to himself is that he’s terrified.  Terrified that the reason Derek doesn’t see him in this life is because this is the end, because they’ve finally reached a point where they’re no longer connected and Stiles will die with the knowledge that Derek won’t be there with him when he wakes up again._

Stiles would rather rip his soul to shreds than face the rest of eternity alone.

~~~

Peter makes it his own personal mission to force Stiles to enjoy himself after that.

He plies Stiles with dinners, movies, and shopping.  He comes at him full force with the dry wit and sarcasm and flair for the dramatics that Stiles has always liked about Peter even when he _hated_ him.

Then their time is up and Stiles has to go home, back to his tiny apartment that he only stays in on the nights where the crush of the Pack is too painful to endure, and work and regular life.  Peter is in the passenger side of his car _the jeep finally died on him a few years back and to this day Stiles still hates kelpies_ when he pulls back into town.

He drives to his apartment and Peter piles in behind him, carrying the impressive amount of bags that Stiles has managed to accumulate on such a small trip.  They order take-out and open a bottle of wine to let it breathe while Stiles calls his dad and Scott and tells them that he’s home and safe and yes he’ll see them tomorrow.  He’s about to call Derek _because he knows Derek worries even if they aren’t as close as Stiles wants to be so he’ll check in because it helps Derek feel better_ when he feels the wolf pull into the parking lot like a string attached to his soul has been plucked.

Peter perks up at the exact same time and there’s concern in his eyes when he looks at Stiles.  He masks it quickly and then deliberately only takes down two of Stiles’ Hello Kitty wine glasses, the ones that Erica had proudly presented him with for his twenty-first birthday.

Stiles takes a deep breath, clenches his eyes closed, and straightens his shoulders as Derek knocks on the door.

“I was just about to call you and tell you I was back.”  Stiles announces as he pulls the door open and ushers Derek inside.  Derek’s eyebrows are pulled down and Stiles sees the way he scents the air when he steps inside.  Peter choses that moment to step back into the living room and hand Stiles his glass of wine.  Stiles watches _confused, vaguely hopeful and just shy of pleading_ as Derek’s face darkens at the sight of his uncle so obviously comfortable in Stiles’ apartment.

“Peter.”  Derek’s voice is a low rumble and his eyes flash red once but Peter just smirks, inclines his head, and takes another sip of his wine.

“Nephew.  Come to welcome us home from our vacation?”  Peter sounds so _smug_ and almost _challenging_ and Stiles sees a hint of dark amusement in Peter’s eyes that he doesn’t really want to let himself understand.

“ _Your_ vacation?”  There’s a definite bite in Derek’s voice then.

“Hmm.”  Peter hums against the rim of his glass as he steps forward and ruffles Stiles’ hair.  “I figured our boy might get lonely all out on his own so I decided to drop in on the last half of his vacation.  I think we had a _delightful_ time together.  You missed out.”

Stiles raises an unimpressed brow at Peter but doesn’t refute it because he actually _did_ have a good time with the wolf.  Derek obviously picks up on that fact and Stiles can barely breathe when the tension in the room is wretched up to ten.  But then Derek just shuts down, pulls it back and closes off in a way that makes Stiles _hurt_.

“Pack meeting tomorrow night at eight.  Both of you had better be there.”  Derek grinds the words out and then he turns and stomps out of the apartment all without looking at Stiles again.  Stiles feels his face _crumple_ when the door slams shut behind him.

Peter just sighs, reaches out and tugs Stiles close to his side and holds him there until the doorbell rings and their food arrives.  They eat silently together side by side on the couch and then Peter carries him to bed and wraps himself around him when Stiles can’t hold his eyes open any more.

He’s not there when Stiles wakes up in the morning but that’s alright.

Stiles has gotten used to waking up alone in the mornings in this life.

~~~

Stiles spends the day getting caught up with his dad and with a Scott who wrinkles his nose at him and mutters about how he _reeks_ of Peter.  Stiles makes sure to keep a bright smile on his face, answers questions about his vacation and what he and Peter did.  Stiles tells them about shopping and movies and Peter being a complete and totally smug asshole when he _destroyed_ Stiles at pool.

He doesn’t talk about the crying.

Or the drinking.

Or the tattoo.

Those aren’t meant for anyone but him and for Peter because he was the one who was there for it.

~~~

That night the Pack gathers together in the living room of Derek’s wide sprawling house _Stiles had poured so much of himself into protecting it once it was rebuilt, had slit his wrists and bled on the foundation as he layered protection after protection on the land and no one had ever known thanks to the way the wards ate the scent from his blood_.  Stiles keeps his best face forward when the rest of the Pack asks about his trip and is grateful when Peter says nothing of the darkness he’d pulled Stiles out of or the tattoo.

Derek doesn’t look at him _please look, just look, just see me_ and Stiles feels that hope he’s been holding onto for so long flicker like a candle in a breeze.

He makes himself smile a bit brighter, lets his Spark well up and wash away the scent of his pain _sadness, desperation, longing_ before the others notice in a move that became second nature _years_ ago.

He falls asleep that night in the nest of blankets and pillows beside the Pack with Peter wrapped around him tightly.  It’s only the way the wolf’s hand rests over the tattoo on his heart that keeps Stiles from flying apart at the seams again.

~~~

A month after he gets back Stiles feels the bits of peace he’d found on his vacation slowly begin to slip through his fingers.  He’s restless and moody and one morning he wakes Peter up early when he feels like there is glass beneath his skin.  Stiles just stares at him for a moment where they’re standing together on the porch and then Peter hugs him tightly and murmurs quietly in his ear.

“I’ve got you pup.  Whatever you need to do we’ll do it.  Okay?”

Stiles just nods and takes Peter by the hand.

~~~

They drive back to that town they’d stayed in, drive right up to the tattoo parlor, and walk inside together.

The artist, the same woman from before, takes one look at Stiles, pulls out a sketch pad, and ushers him to the back room.  Peter follows silently.

Stiles tells the woman what he wants, watches her sketch it out and points out the changes that need to be made to the design.  He feels more relaxed than he has in weeks when he’s finally underneath her needle, and the rhythmic hum and punch of the tattoo gun is almost cathartic.

Stiles’ second tattoo is a set of claw marks splayed across the arch of his right hip.  They’re so red and violently rendered that it looks like a real wound, like he’s been laid open all the way down to the bone.  Stiles thinks they’re perfect _because he feels like he’s been laid open down to his soul_ but there is an almost aching kind of sadness on Peter’s face when he runs his fingertips gently across the ink when they’re outside and Stiles has ripped the bandage off.

~~~

The two of them are back to get his third within two weeks.  Derek’s been prickly, been harsher with Stiles than he’s been in years, growls and snaps at Peter whenever the two of them show up at the house together and Stiles is desperate for an escape.

Shari, the tattoo artist, doesn’t say anything about the fact that Stiles’ other tattoo looks completely healed already.  This time Stiles comes prepared, has a string of symbols ready and carefully drawn out.  Shari arches a brow, traces a finger over the striking shapes and asks Stiles where they’re from.

He tells her they’re just something he dreamed about and ignores the way Peter sucks in a sharp breath behind him.

She tattoos them one after another down the line of his spine, starts low enough that they won’t peek out of his shirt collar and does them in a bold red outlined in black.

~~~

On the car ride back to Beacon Hills Peter looks at him out of the corner of his eye from his place in the passenger seat but doesn’t say anything.

“Ask.”  Stiles tells him, softly, almost gently.  He’s still blissed out from the tattoo gun even if the wound itself has already healed.

“Why the ouroboros?”  Peter asks quietly and Stiles isn’t surprised that Peter starts there, at the beginning of Stiles’ attempts to ink his heart onto his skin so maybe it will all hurt less.  _So far it only works for a few hours at a time._

“Because it’s eternal, never ending.  An unbroken circle and connection, devouring itself for all eternity.”  Stiles answers him honestly, tired and desperate for someone he can talk to about everything and Peter has proven himself worthy in his strange way.  “Because it means wholeness and I’m so tired of being incomplete Peter.”

“And the claws?”  Peter had looked sad after that one Stiles remembers suddenly.

“Sometimes I feel like I’ve been ripped open, like I’m bleeding everywhere but nowhere and I can’t make it stop and it _hurts_.”

There is a long silence between them after that.

“And this one?  I know those symbols mean something even if I’ve never seen anything like them before.  I don’t think anyone else ever has either.”  Peter is right of course and Stiles can’t help but smile even as he swallows around the lump in his throat because this one hurts too.

“We ruled together once, had an entire kingdom at our feet filled with people who loved us.  We were happy too.  We were so _happy_ and it was so _good_.”  Stiles chokes at the memory and has to blink abruptly so he can see the road through his sudden tears.  “And we died together in that life too, died old and content and _loved_.  He loved me so much Peter.”

“What do they mean Stiles?”  Peter’s the gentle one then.

“We knew it was over, that we weren’t going to wake up again when we went to sleep that night.”  Stiles hands are shaking and he has enough forethought to pull his car off to the side of the road and put it into park.  Still it’s a few minutes before he can speak again.  “He held me close like he always did and he told me _across all of the worlds and through time I will always find my way back to you and I will always love you._ ”

“ _Stiles_.”  Peter’s voice actually breaks and then Stiles’ seatbelt is being released and he’s being dragged over the console and into Peter’s lap so he can cry into the hollow of his throat.  “Shh.  It’s okay.”

“He _promised_ Peter.  We both promised and we _always_ find each other, always love each other, even if only for a little while, only for a minute or a day.”  Stiles sobs the words out.  “Each and every time, no matter how we meet he _loves_ me, we love each other.  _Except for this one_.”

Stiles can’t talk after that but Peter doesn’t need him to.  Instead he just rocks Stiles, holds him there in Stiles’ car on the side of the road until Stiles gets himself under control.  Then he finally asks another question.

“Does it help?  The tattoos?”  Peter runs a soothing hand through Stiles’ hair and down the tattooed line of his spine.

“Yeah.  At least a little, like I don’t have so much to keep bottled up if I can keep it on my skin instead.”  He whispers into the curve of Peter’s neck.

“Then just don’t go alone.”  Peter tells him firmly, resolutely.  “When you need another one, don’t go alone.  Take me with you.”

“Okay.”  It’s an offer that Stiles can’t and doesn’t want to refuse.  “Just don’t tell the others.  No one knows about them but you.”

“Good.”  Peter declares firmly.  “They don’t deserve to.”

~~~

Stiles takes to keeping his shirt on all the time, is careful not to undress in front of anyone.

Peter runs interference for him, lets Stiles use his bedroom or his private bathroom where none of the rest of the Pack treads.

Derek gets angrier and Stiles doesn’t know what to do because Derek won’t look at him and won’t talk to him and it wears on him quickly.

~~~

The next time they leave together Peter takes one look at Stiles while they’re all sitting around the table eating breakfast at Derek’s house and abruptly stands up.  The entire table goes silent and Stiles just stares up at Peter from where he’s sitting at Derek’s right side.

Peter doesn’t say anything, just stalks over to Stiles and offers him his hand with a significant look towards the door.  Stiles understands what he means instantly so he reaches out, wraps his fingers around Peter’s, and lets himself be pulled to his feet.

“Where the hell are you two going?”  Derek snarls and it is Peter who responds to the question, who flashes steel blue eyes in Derek’s direction and a hint of fang.

“Stiles and I have _business_ oh Alpha my Alpha.  We’ll be back in a few hours so don’t worry your pretty little head.”  His voice is so saccharine sweet that even Stiles winces.

“What kind of business?”  Derek’s eyes blaze red and Stiles can see more than just a hint of fang and abruptly feels anger and bitterness rear up inside of him.

“The private kind.”  He snaps harshly and ignores the way Derek’s eyes go wide and everyone else freezes even more if that’s even possible because Stiles doesn’t snap at Derek like that anymore, not with such deep anger and rage in his voice.  _Derek won’t look at him, not really, and Stiles is resigned to a life of loving a soul mate who doesn’t want him but he can’t let Derek take this away from him, not when it’s his only source of comfort._

Stiles practically drags Peter out of the house, ignores the rush of noise that roars up behind them and the shattering of glass as something hits a wall.

~~~

That afternoon he and Peter go back to his little apartment and Stiles has a stylized fox wrapped around his left ankle and a wolf around his right.  Wearing pants or high socks all of the time is going to be a bitch but he feels a little more grounded afterwards.

~~~

It goes on like that and Stiles slowly accumulates tattoos, slowly inks bits and pieces of lives long gone onto his skin to escape the pain of the one he’s living in now.

There are tiny, meticulously detailed replicas of the swords he and Derek had killed each other with right below his left armpit.A mismatched pair of wings that span his shoulder blades, one black, dark and stark like Stiles’ wings had been in that life, and the other is a bright vibrant red like Derek’s great wingspan had been.  There’s a spiral of protective sigils that wraps around his belly button and delicate vine like rings around each of his toes, each one different and beautiful and filled with meaning.

He blows through a huge chunk of his savings and he thinks about slowing down, about rationing out the relief getting ink gives him but then Shari gives him a discount, offers to do all his ink at half price.  When he asks why she tells him it’s because he _needs_ the tattoos more than _wants_ them and she’s seen the kind of look he has on his face every time he comes in before and she knows how it can end if things go badly.

Stiles doesn’t say anything, just swallows hard and leans into the hand Peter wraps around his shoulder.

~~~

Time passes, Derek mellows back out a bit but there’s an anger in him, a distance between him and Stiles and Peter that was never there before despite everything that had happened in the past.  It flows over into the rest of the Pack until Stiles has to dig his fingers into his knees at the way Boyd won’t look him in the eyes anymore, how Erica doesn’t call him Batman once for an entire month and a half.  Isaac’s sarcasm is even more biting and harsh than normal and Scott just looks bewildered most of the time.

Stiles starts skipping Pack meetings, only really shows up if someone, mainly Peter, specifically asks him to or if there’s something serious going on.  _The distance pains him but he needs the room, needs the breathing space to keep from screaming, and no one seems to really care anyways._

Winter comes and Stiles gets Derek’s coat of arms on the side of his left arm _they’d been warriors in that life too, bound together in love and in battle_ and a replica of a crown Stiles had once fashioned by hand from bone _for his Queen, his love,_ wrapped around his right knee.

Derek comes into a Pack meeting late one night when Stiles is actually there and they’re all watching a movie.  There is a lipstick smudge on the corner of his mouth and Stiles _can’t_ _breathe_.

The next day Stiles googles job openings in surrounding towns.  _He loves Derek, he really does, and he will always be there if he is needed, will come when called and will do all in his power to protect him and the Pack.  But Stiles can’t do this anymore, can’t live with them all, beside them all, and watch Derek settle down with someone that isn’t him.  Not when it might be permanent this time._

He puts in an application for the sheriff’s department in the next county over and knuckles under as best he can.  _It hurts, hurts so much that it’s looped back around to numbness again and it’s only Peter’s strong supportive presence that keeps Stiles from doing something … drastic._

He doesn’t tell anyone when he gets accepted, when they tell him they’ll have a spot for him at the beginning of the year if that’s alright.  He just sends his agreement in two days later and drives out on one of his days off to wander around the town and look at apartments.

Leaving Beacon Hills might not be the best move but it's the only one that Stiles has at the moment and he's _desperate._

~~~

He lasts a week before he tells Peter, whispers it to him one night when they’ve driven out deep into the preserve so they can lay on the ground and stare up at the stars.  Peter tell him stories about the constellations that Stiles had memorized years ago but still likes to hear.

“I’m leaving.”  Stiles says softly and feels Peter freeze beside him.  “I’ve got a job offer a county over and I’m taking it.  Going to get an apartment and everything.”

“When are _we_ leaving?”  Peter asks casually, an air of forced calm about him.

“We?”  Stiles turns his head and looks at Peter curiously and can only smile when Peter rolls his eyes in exaggerated exasperation.

“I’m coming with you of course.”  He says it like it’s the most obvious thing in the world even as Stiles stomach clenches in affection and sorrow.

“You can’t.”  His voice is ragged, tired, _old_.  “You have to stay with the Pack Peter.  We both know that.  You need them to stay safe, to not be an omega.”  _Omegas die quickly and they both know it, the knowledge hangs in the air between them, unspoken but as loud as one of Lydia’s screams._

“I need _you_ more.”  Peter says it with a quiet kind of truth, like he’s made peace with it, likes it even.

“I can’t love you like you want me to Peter.”  Stiles stares resolutely up at the night sky and ignores the tears that slid out of the corner of his eyes and soak into the cold ground beneath him.  “I never will.”  _He doesn’t even want to is what’s so bad about it.  Doesn’t even have idle fantasies about loving Peter who would, does, love him back.  Derek is the only one who can ever make him whole and he knows that and as much as it hurts he knows he’ll never want anyone else._

“I don’t care Stiles.  I never really have.”  Peter reaches out and grabs his hand, laces their fingers together tightly.  “I don’t need you to love me.  Even if Derek wasn’t so blind when it comes to you I’d still want to be beside you.  I’d still be at your side.  You’re the only thing that’s made me feel alive since the fire burned me out inside.”

“You still have to stay Peter, I still want you safe.  I don’t want you to take the chance of losing your Pack ties.”  Stiles swallows hard and squeezes Peter’s fingers because he knows he’s about to be selfish but he can’t help it.  “I need you here, to watch over them, _him,_ when I can’t.  Protect them if something happens so I’ll have enough time to get here.”

Peter growls low and long and then sighs.  Stiles knows that he’s won then even if he gets no real pleasure from the knowledge.

“Fine.  But I’m helping you find a place and if I don’t get a key to your apartment and a permanent invitation I will do something drastic and unpleasant.”  He sounds petulant, like he’s pouting, but Stiles hears the seriousness in his voice.

“Deal.”  Stiles laughs through his sadness _he always feels so sad these days_.  “ _Deal_.”

~~~

Stiles starts going to Pack meetings again after that even if he doesn’t really feel welcome anymore.

He goes and spends most of his time in the corner or attached to Peter’s side, just sits in the background and soaks up as much of the atmosphere as he can.

He’s going to miss them when he’s gone, going to miss seeing them on a regular basis, and he wants to spend some time with them while he can.

~~~

One rainy Tuesday he gets his and Derek’s wedding vows tattooed down the line of his ribs on the right side.  _It’s a series of dots and dashes similar to Morse code but they’d used intricate clicks and purposeful stops to talk in that life._

~~~

What time he isn’t with the Pack he’s at work or in the preserve with Peter.  He lays down protections and wards as much of the land as he can, pours himself into the spells until he can barely see, until he’s barely breathing and his Spark is little more than a flicker.

Then he gets up the next morning and he does it all over again.

~~~

Shari inks an ornate key hole on the back of his left knee.

~~~

Peter carries him out of the preserve one night.  Lifts his bloody, bruised form up into strong arms and then takes him home after Stiles almost bleeds himself dry to put up the most extensive set of fire resistant wards around the forest that he’s ever seen.

~~~

Stiles gets a red triskele at the small of his back, like a punctuation to the vow Derek had given him so long ago _centuries and worlds and dimensions apart from where they are now._

~~~

Derek tears into him one day over the fact that Stiles went out on his own to take on the witch that had encroached on their territory.  He’s furious and screams at Stiles about the fact that no one had realized he was gone until he’d called Peter to come and get him, too weak to leave on his own.

Stiles had been drained when the battle had been over but he’d been fine.  He’d just been so _tired_ and he’d clung to a furious Peter who’d growled at anyone who came too close as he carried Stiles out of the nematon’s clearing.

Derek puts his fist through a wall and roars about how Stiles should have told him, should have let the Pack handle it instead of being _stupid_ enough to go out there alone.  About how they don’t need protection from a _human_.

Stiles keeps quiet about the mountain ash, about wolfsbane vines and the spells meant to turn wolves feral intertwined in the trees and the _grass_.  He doesn’t tell Derek how the nematon is _angry_ that he’s leaving, that the witch had been allowed through in an attempt to make him _stay._

He doesn’t tell Derek how the _land_ is trying to keep him there, how the forest _cries_ at the thought of Stiles going away.

He keeps quiet about the wards that he’s layered all around the preserve and the house and the fact that he’s been protecting them for _years_ but hasn’t had the time to layer more than a handful around the rest of the town.  That he’s always focused on mainly protecting the places the Pack works and lives in.

He holds his silence because it's the only thing he has left at the moment.

~~~

Peter holds his hand but doesn’t take his pain when Shari transforms the entirety of his left thigh into a massive flowering tree _he and Derek had lived there once, in a tree like that, had loved and lived in their little house high in its branches and they’d been so happy in that life too_.

~~~

“I never hated him for Kate.  You know that right?  I never really blamed him for what happened, not once I came back the second time a little saner than I had been.”  Peter says one night as hugs Stiles to him, buries his face in his hair as they stand beside Peter’s car outside in the night air.  “I never hated him for any of it.”

“Peter?”  Stiles is confused but he knows that whatever it is that Peter is trying to tell him is important.

“I never hated him for any of that but … I think I hate him for this.  For you.  For what he’s doing to you.”  Peter’s arms tighten around him then like a vice.  “For how he’s killing you slowly.”

“Don’t hate him Peter.  He’s your family and he needs you even if he doesn’t know it or want to admit it.  Don’t hate him.”  Stiles pleads with him.  “I don’t.”

“I know you don’t.”  Peter whispers into the crook of his neck.  “I know you don’t hate him and that’s why I do.  _Because you can’t_.”

~~~

Christmas comes and Stiles pushes aside the awkwardness and the hurt that he feels and throws himself into the holiday with abandon just like he always does.  He buys presents and decorates and spends his free time with Peter at his new apartment in the next town over, the one that Peter finally had decided was up to snuff enough for him to rent, getting things in order.  His lease is up on his old place at the first of the year and Stiles will be gone and working by the second so that works out well.

He spends Christmas morning at Derek’s house with the Pack.  Opens his small pile of presents quietly, and grins at the assortment of stuff everyone gets him, from novelty boxers _his and Scott’s standard gift to each other although this year Stiles also included a three day stay at romantic bed and breakfast for him and Allison in his gift_ to comics _Erica_ and a coupon for a free luxury car detailing _thanks Jackson_.

He forces himself to smile at the new tome of spells Derek gets him, an old, expensive book that he’d talked about wanting six months ago.

Peter gets him practically every werewolf movie ever made and a book on the language of flowers _Stiles once told him how Derek had been a florist of all things one time and Stiles had always regretted never living long enough to learn the language himself_.

Everyone is confused when he tears up and hugs Peter gratefully.

He gives Derek his gift without meeting his eyes, stares at his hands as Derek unwraps it.  He finally looks up when Derek sucks in a sharp breath as he opens the box and realizes what’s inside.

Derek pulls the photo album out reverently and carefully opens it.  Stiles sits beside Derek as he flips through the pages slowly, looks over the different graduation photos, full of caps and gowns and artfully selected sunglasses.  He looks through candid photos of the Pack and bits and pieces of their history together that Stiles has carefully accumulated over the years.  _Stiles had originally made it for himself but he’s given it to Derek because he knows how much it will mean to him, how pictures and history mean so much to Derek now that he has so few of his family left._

“Not a lot of pictures of you in here.”  Derek observes softly as he lingers over Stiles’ favorite photo, one where they’re all together for once and Derek actually has his arm slung over Stiles’ shoulder.  They’d been at the beach and gotten a stranger to take it for them after a day filled with sun and laughter.  _That had been a good day, one of the best, one of the ones that gave Stiles hope that Derek might see him one day.  It hadn’t happened but it had still been good._

“Someone had to be behind the camera and I don’t trust you idiots with something that fragile.”  Stiles jokes carefully and does his best not to stare at the soft look on Derek’s face.  _He fails_.  “Besides I’m not really that photogenic.  Don’t have those gorgeous werewolf/banshee/huntress looks all the rest of you are so blessed with.”  The rest of the Pack laughs and jeers and Erica catcalls him and for a brief second it all feels like it used to. 

“You should have taken my offer of the bite when I gave it to you then.”  Peter snarks from across the room.

“Aw sugar you’re just mad cause you couldn’t get your teeth in me.  It’s alright, I still love you.”  Stiles grins back and Derek abruptly stiffens, his face closes off and he snaps the album closed.

“He did the right thing.  The bite would be a mistake for Stiles.  He’s better off human.”  Derek snaps at his uncle and there’s tension in the room for a moment before Derek tosses Boyd another present and they all determinedly go back to being cheerful.

Stiles feels numb again and he climbs shakily to his feet and retreats to the kitchen a few seconds later.  Turns the water on in the sink and presses his hand against his eyes and wills himself not to cry.

He gets himself back under control and goes back out into the living room.  He tosses Peter one of his gifts and watches the way his face lights up when he opens the box and finds a key to Stiles’ new apartment there attached to a keychain shaped like a little orange fox.  Stiles also got him a bottle of obscenely expensive scotch because Peter likes the taste even if he can’t get drunk.

Derek glares at the both of them, eyes bright and angry and Stiles slips out of the house and drives to his dad’s place a little after noon, unable to handle the looks anymore.

He spends the rest of the day with his dad, exchanges gifts and drinks a few beers and talks about a little bit of everything as long as it isn’t Derek.  Peter shows up late that afternoon and his dad welcomes him in, has resigned himself to Peter and Stiles’ strange friendship.

~~~

The next day Peter rides with him to Shari’s parlor so Stiles can get the first bar of the waltz he’d once written with Derek’s face in his mind inked onto his left wrist right above sleeve level.

~~~

The day after that Stiles sits his dad down and tells him he’s moving, tells him he has an apartment and a new job and that he’ll be gone by the first of the year but he’ll come see him often, will call all of the time.

John doesn’t like it but Stiles begs him to understand and eventually he caves, even promises not to tell the Pack, not to say anything to anyone besides Peter because Stiles isn’t ready for them to know yet.  John doesn’t think it’ll take them long to figure it out but Stiles isn’t so sure.

~~~

He watches the ball drop on New Year’s at Derek’s house with a beer in his hand and numbness in his heart.  He’s not drunk but he’d like to be and the reality of the decision he’s made crashes down on him hard.  A part of him wants to take it all back but the rest of him is too tired to do it, too desperate for some kind of peace to put himself back into the position he’d been in before.

Still he can’t keep himself from being selfish and stupid one more time before he starts a new year and a new life off away from the only soul he’ll _ever_ love.

So when the ball starts to drop down and midnight is almost there he smiles at Peter from across the room and makes his way to Derek’s side.  Derek looks down at him, a slight smile on his face, and his eyes are warm and calm all the way up until Stiles moves into his space and presses their lips together as the TV chimes out the New Year behind them.

For a moment Derek kisses him back and it’s everything Stiles has ever wanted, _needed_ , and his heart feels like it’s going to _explode_ and then Derek is shoving him away, pushing Stiles out of his space with barely restrained violence.

“Don’t _ever_ do that again.”  Derek snarls at him and swipes the back of his hand across his mouth.

Stiles just stares at Derek for a moment and he’s just completely and totally _blank_.  He kissed Derek, finally kissed him, and Derek had pushed him away, had snarled and wiped his touch away like it disgusting and he’s just … _done_.

“I’m out.”  Stiles says, puts his beer bottle down on a nearby table and turns towards Peter who is already making his way to his side.  “Take me home.”

“Always a pleasure little fox.”  Peter puts a hand on the small of his back, strokes his fingers across the spot where they both know the red triskele rests, leads Stiles out to his car and drives them both away.

Stiles holds it together until they’re a town over and at his new apartment, until the door is shut, locked, and the privacy wards he’s already laid down in blood are activated.

Then he just … _breaks_.

He howls and screams, rages against the unfairness of it all, of what has happened to the bond he should have had with Derek, at the fact that it has, somewhere along the way, turned into this one-sided torturous _hell_.  About the fact that he’s going to die alone _again_ and he doesn’t know if waking up the next time will be worth it either.

Peter’s there for all of it.  He holds him down when Stiles starts throwing things around with his magic, curves his body over Stiles’ to keep him from getting hurt from the glass and the debris when his Spark flares bright and painful in his chest.

He holds Stiles in the middle of the destruction of his new apartment as he sobs until he can’t breathe and then just goes silent and still and only rouses when Peter smacks him lightly on the cheek.

That morning Peter calls Shari, asks her for a favor and gives her Stiles’ address.  The woman shows up before noon with a small tattoo kit.  Her face is sad when she takes in the destruction of the apartment that Peter has only begun to clean up and the way Stiles sits and stares blankly at the wall.

“What do you need this time sugar?  It’s on the house.”  Shari settles down in a chair beside him.

He’s silent for a long moment and then he holds out his right hand, curls his fingers into a fist until only his pinky is extended.

“A red string.”  He tells her softly, emotionlessly.  “Loop it around the finger.”

“Are you sure?”  He’s never asked her for anything that can’t be covered by clothes before, has always been extra careful to make sure he could keep his tattoos hidden.

“Yeah.”  _He doesn’t have anything left to hide.  He isn't sure he has anything left in general._

“Can I embellish it a bit or do you want just a simple string design?”  Shari’s already breaking out her stuff and setting up when she asks.

“I don’t care, just as long as it’s red and has a string in it.”  This will be the last one he gets, he knows that now, and he doesn’t mind if she takes some artistic license with it.

In the end Shari circles the tip of his pinky with an intricate red Mehndi design and then trails a thin line of red up and loops it around the base of his finger with an eight fold knot.  It’s beautiful like all of her work is but Stiles is too numb to really appreciate it.

“Take care of him.”  Shari whispers to Peter after she’s packed up.  Peter gives her a solemn nod and then she leans down to press a kiss to Stiles’ forehead like she knows she won’t see him again.  “It was nice knowing you kid.  You ever want any more work done and you don’t come to me I’ll hunt you down and kick your ass.”

“Thanks Shari.”  Stiles manages to summon up a smile for her before she leaves but it collapses as soon as the door is shut behind her.

Stiles goes to bed ten minutes later and stays there the rest of the day and the night and only wakes up when Peter shakes him the next morning and reminds him that he has to go into work.

~~~

He operates on auto pilot as he gets up, gets a shower and puts on his new uniform.  Peter has the apartment clean and has apparently been hard at work because the shit Stiles broke has all been replaced already.

He gives Peter a kiss on the cheek, hugs him for a moment, and then leaves quietly, gets into his car and drives to his new job.

The day passes slowly as he gets settled in and gets his assignments.  The people in the department are all friendly, and relatively welcoming and Stiles makes an effort to be at least polite.  He’ll have the shit shifts for a while but Stiles doesn’t _care_ anymore, has nothing else to really look forward to, so he agrees without even a token protest.

~~~

The weeks slip by after that, a long blur of time that Stiles barely notices.  He eats and drinks, showers and shaves, goes to work and just moves forward all without really _wanting_ to.  _But he does it anyways because he promised his mom he’d keep going and he needs to live to help keep everyone safe even if it’s from a distance._

He sees his dad at least once a week, drives down to spend the day with him and wander around Beacon Hills.  While he’s there he reinforces the wards around the Hale property and the preserve remotely and adds a few more to the town itself.  He texts back and forth with Scott and Erica and occasionally Lydia and a few of the others but his heart isn’t really in it and neither are theirs for some reason.

Peter is a steady presence in his life just like he promised he would be, drives up to his place almost every other day and uses his key with gleeful impunity.

~~~

It’s March before he sees Derek again.

He gets a terse text that informs him of a Pack meeting,  He has the day off and he’d promised Scott he’d show up at the next one even though he’d rather not so he actually goes.

Peter beats him there and he has an angry, worried look on his face when Stiles drags himself inside the house, his face ragged and his hair wild.  He’s dressed in sweat pants and a long sleeved shirt and a pair of house shoes that he doesn’t remember putting on.

“You look like hell buddy.”  Scott frowns at him from across the room and Stiles reaches his right hand up and runs it through his hair without really thinking about it.

“Long week.”  He makes the excuse easily.

“What’s this?”  Allison’s the one who grabs him by the wrist and tugs until his hand is hanging in the air between them at eye level.  “You got a tattoo!”  Her surprised exclamation gets the attention of everyone else and suddenly they’re crowding around him with the exception of Peter who just arches a brow and meets Stiles’ eyes over their heads.

“Pretty.”  Erica coos as she runs the tip of an equally red nail over the ink on his finger.  “What’s it mean?”

“Just an old legend I read once.”  Stiles answers, vaguely uncomfortable and he resolutely doesn’t look in Derek’s direction.  “Thought it’d look cool.”

“Red string of fate right?  Ancient Japanese folklore about soul mates and destiny.  Never thought you’d be so sentimental Stiles.”  Lydia _of fucking course it’s Lydia_ is the one who speaks up next and Stiles barely suppresses a wince.  He rolls his shoulders uncomfortably and tugs at his hand which is currently caught in Boyd’s who is studying the pattern carefully.

“I, unlike some, actually have an emotional range that extends beyond hair gel and scarves.  I liked it so I got Shari to ink it on.”  Stiles retorts and ignores the way Jackson and Isaac both sneer at him.

“Who’s Shari?”  Derek rumbles the question.

“A friend and my artist.  I met her last year and she’s been good to me.”  Stiles stares off over the Alpha’s shoulder when he answers.  _It hurts to look into Derek’s eyes and know he’s the only one seeing something when he does._

“I’ve been thinking about getting a new one.  Think she’d take me on?”  Scott asks cheerfully and Stiles can’t help but smile at him.

“Yeah.  You tell her I sent you and she’ll treat you extra good.”  She would too, would treat Scott great just like she’d treated him.  “But f.y.i I’m not blow torching you this time either.”

“I need an appointment?  She’s got to be booked solid if she’s that good.”  Scott bounces a bit on his toes, face open and eager.

“Nah, she takes walk ins if you’re willing to wait, especially during the week.  First time I went in she had me out in couple of hours no problem with no appointment.”  He sees the way Peter’s eyes widen at the same time he realizes what he’s said and even though he’s not really trying to hide anymore he hopes no one catches him out.

“You’ve been more than once.  Got more than the one tattoo.”  Derek puts the idea out into the open and suddenly Stiles has eyes running all over his body curiously.

“How many?”  Isaac asks.

“Where at?”  Erica purrs.

“Why didn’t we smell the blood?”  Boyd’s the one who asks the intelligent question.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”  Scott sounds wounded.

Stiles sighs, pinches the bridge of his nose and then answers them all in order.  “I’ve got a couple of tattoos and for your information they’re pretty wide spread Erica and no I’m not dropping my pants so you can see them all.  My Spark makes me heal quicker and a tattoo is like a scrape and a bruise so it’s normally healed before I’m even half way back home.  And I didn’t tell you for the same reason you got your tattoo Scott.  They all mean something to me, they’re all special.”

“Peter already knew.”  Lydia states with a kind of calm certainty.  “He’d be all over you if he didn’t.”

Peter freezes where he’s lounging on the couch.  He eyes Stiles uncertainly for a moment and then smirks, all smug and smarmy like he normally does when he’s got his dickishness turned up to twelve, when Stiles gives him a small nod of permission.  “As gloriously astute as always _dear_ Lydia.  Yes I knew about them and yes before you ask I went with him to get them all and no I won’t tell you what they are since they’re none of your business.”

“That’s enough.”  Derek snaps suddenly.  “You can leer as Stiles’ ink later.  We’ve got other things to talk about.”  He turns red eyes in Stiles’ direction then.  “You’ve been skipping meetings again.  I’ve been by your place four time in the past two weeks and you’re never home, plus I never see you out on patrol anymore.  Where the hell have you been?”

“You could’ve called if you needed something.  I’d have drove by.”  Stiles side steps the questions neatly.

“Don’t give me that shit Stiles.  I need to know where you are and what you’ve been doing.  I’m your Alpha and I should be able to find you whenever I need to.”  Derek steps closer to him, gets in his face and flashes his eyes.

“No.”  Stiles declares suddenly with a deliberate calmness that makes Derek freeze.  _He can’t do this anymore._  “You’re not my Alpha.  Sorry buddy, not in this life, maybe in the _next_.”

Stiles stares Derek directly in the eyes for once when he says it, expects to see nothing there like always in response to his little dig.

Except …

Except this time he _does_.  This time there’s a glimmer of something in Derek’s eyes, sadness maybe or more like _awareness_.

Stiles suddenly feels sick as realization crashes down on top of him.

“You _know_.”  It’s less of a whisper and more of a whimper but it’s loud like a gunshot.  “ _You fucking know.”_

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”  Derek denies quickly, too quickly, but this time too Stiles sees something in his eyes, sees the lie easily, like he could hear the skip in Derek’s heartbeat.

“He’s _lying_.”  Peter’s voice, low and dark and filled with rage, sounds out from where he’s suddenly at Stiles’ side.  “You’re lying Derek.”

“No I’m not, now back the fuck off Peter before I make you.”  Derek snaps at his uncle.

“How long?”  Stiles can’t move, can’t blink, and it feels like there is a hurricane in his head, in his heart, his lungs.  _If he exhales too quickly he could destroy worlds._   “How long have you known Derek?”

“I don’t know anything.”  Derek takes a step back from Stiles then and his retreat is telling,  _it’s an admission_.

“ _Liar_.”  Stiles breathes the word out.  “You’re a goddamn liar.”

“No I’m not Stiles.  Just drop it.”  Derek sounds less commanding and more pleading.

Stiles doesn’t care.  He can’t care.  Not when Derek knows, has known, Stiles has a sinking feeling, _the entire time_.

Stiles … _snaps_.

He reaches down and grabs the hem of his shirt and rips it up off of his head.  He registers the way the rest of the Pack gasps at the sight of just how much ink he has but he doesn’t really care.  Not with how Derek’s eyes hone in on the waltz on his arm, the spiral around his navel, the slash on his hip, and the _wedding vows on his ribs_.

“You killed yourself when I was ten.”  Stiles starts off, ignores the way everyone else goes rigid and looks at him like he’s crazy.  Everyone but Peter … and Derek, who stiffens like he’s been shot instead.  “I sat with your body for _days_ and then when I was twenty-two I stepped into the ocean and never came out.”

“Don’t do this Stiles.  Just let it go.  Please.”  Derek’s face is ashy and his voice _shakes_.

“We had a daughter named Aella and you called her your sweet wind and when she was taken to be sacrificed we burned the temple down around the priests who stole her from us.”  Stile feels ruthless in that moment and now that he’s started he can’t stop.  Bits and pieces of some of the lives they’ve had together just comes spilling out of him like an avalanche, like _accusations_.

“You killed me on a beach, put a bayonet through my heart.  I made you a crown from bone and we ruled together.  You sewed protections into my cloak when I left to trade in the capital.  I burned down an entire village as a blood sacrifice to try and get you back when you disappeared once.  We lived in an ocean together, and in the trees, and we’ve lived in the clouds where your wings were red and mine were _black_.”  Stiles’ feels his voice break then and he has to gasp in a sharp breath to get the next words out.  “We’ve had kingdoms and we’ve had nothing and we’ve killed and stolen and gotten _married_ and been so happy together and so miserable apart.”

“Stop.”  Derek isn’t looking at him then, his eyes are wide and blank and there are tears at the corners and Stiles feels a vicious kind of satisfaction well up inside of him.  _He’s been in agony for years and it’s time Derek knows what he’s been through._

“We’ve followed each other through out countless life times and worlds and places I never imagined existed.”  Stiles starts to shake then, can’t get his body to stop doing that either and it feels like the beginnings of a panic attack or a nervous breakdown.  “You made me a promise.  You said that across all of the worlds and through time you would always … always …” Stiles can’t finish the sentence, can’t repeat the words, the vow, he has tattooed on his back.

He doesn’t have to.

“I told you I’d find my way back to you and that I would always love you.”  Derek finishes it for him, whispers it out and Stiles feel something inside of him _die_.  Feels it switch off with an almost audible _click_.

“You remember.”  He has all of the proof he’ll _ever_ need.

“Yes.”  Derek doesn’t try to deny it again.

“For how long?”  Stiles already knows but he needs to _hear_ it.

“The hospital, when you woke me up in the elevator.  I started remembering then.”  Derek looks up then, face filled with sorrow as he takes a step towards Stiles and opens his mouth to talk again.

Stiles cuts him off abruptly, can’t hear him say anything else because that was _years_ ago, that was all the way back towards the beginning.

“This whole time you let me think it was just me.  You let me go on waiting for you to wake up, to _see_ me, made me watch you date and fuck other people.  All of that and you _knew_.”  Stiles barks out a harsh, bitter laugh, clenches his shirt in his fist.  “You should haven just  _killed_ me again Derek.”

“I couldn’t do that.”  It bursts out of Derek’s mouth like he can’t keep it contained then.  “You know I wouldn’t just do that.  Just because I didn’t want _this_ doesn’t mean I wanted you _dead_.”

“It would have been _kinder_.  It would have been a goddamn _mercy_.”  Stiles clenches his eyes closed for a second and then spins around on his heel and heads for the door.  Does his best to ignore the fact that Derek’s just ripped out what’s left of his heart.  He hears the chocked off whimper Derek makes when he catches sight of the symbols that run down Stiles’ spine, the wings on his back.  Stiles pauses at the doorway, stares out at the trees that surround the house.  “I would have rather died again than spend years thinking you didn’t _know_ me anymore.  Come to find out you just didn’t _want_ to.”

There’s tense silence in the house then and Stiles lets his lips curve up into a small, empty smile even though no one can see it.

“You were wrong Peter.”  Stiles turns his head and locks eyes with the one person who knows what’s going on besides him and Derek.

“About what?”  Peter asks him carefully.

“I think I can hate him after all.”

And then Stiles leaves and for once, _for once_ , he doesn’t look back.


	2. These, our bodies, possessed by light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have been totally blown away from the response to this story. You guys are all amazing and your amazing reviews helped me get through this chapter.

_It’s not like a tree where the roots have to end somewhere,_   
_it’s more like a song on a policeman’s radio,_   
_how we rolled up the carpet so we could dance, and the days_   
_were bright red, and every time we kissed there was another apple_   
_to slice into pieces._

_-Scheherazade, Richard Siken_

~~~

His cell phone starts blowing up before he even makes it to the main road in his car.

He stops for a second, thumbs through the texts that are streaming in from all direction.

Scott is all frantic, confused capitals and misspelled words, Lydia is long complicated sentences, Boyd short concise words, and Erica’s all spitting and confused fury.  It doesn’t matter though, they all say the same thing, are all asking about what’s happened and what’s going on.

Normally Stiles would answer back, would try to soothe them all somehow, would at least explain because he  _knows_  how much it sucks to be left out of the loop.   _God does he know, now more than ever before._

But this time he rolls down his window and tosses the phone out to shatter on the gravel.

This time he lets his Spark flare up around him enough to burn his scent from the air, and then he just … keeps driving.

At least no one will be able to follow him home.  They don’t know where he lives now and Peter will never tell them.  That is if any of them are even interested.  Beyond that they can get their answers from their  _Alpha_ , since  _he_  apparently has them all anyways.  

He doesn’t stop until he’s home, until he’s all the way in the next town over and sitting in the parking lot of his apartment complex, staring at his steering wheel with dead eyes and a deader heart.

Two hours later he finally actually makes it  _into_  his apartment.

He locks his front door, drops his keys on the floor and shuffles to his room where he face plants on the bed. 

He’s exhausted in a way that he can’t describe and he feels …  _empty_  inside.  The anger and rage and vicious hurt from before is gone and all that’s left is an aching kind of tiredness.

He’s still staring silently at his wall when he feels Peter approach the apartment building.  He doesn’t even twitch when the front door opens and closes.  He only stirs when Peter is suddenly in his room.

“You’re hurt.”  He can feel it in Peter’s aura, can hear it in the way his normal swaggering walk is little more than a shuffle.

“I’ll heal … eventually.”  There’s a shuffle of clothes and then Peter’s naked chest is pressed against Stiles’ back.  Neither of them care about the blood that seeps slowly into the sheets and Stiles’ shirt.

“You shouldn’t have fought with him.  I never wanted you hurt.”  Alpha wounds take longer to heal, they both know that, and even empty Stiles would never want Peter to bleed for him.  He lets his Spark flare,  _it’s the only thing left inside of him at the moment_ spreads it over Peter and pushes his body to heal.

“It was worth it.”  Peter sighs into his hair afterwards, reaches around and tangles their fingers together tightly.  “You’re worth it Stiles.  You’ll  _always_  be worth it.”

“I’m really  _really_  not.”  Stiles whispers dully.   _Because if he was worth it his fucking soul mate would love him, want him, wouldn’t have done his best to ignore their connection._

“I should’ve finished it.  I should’ve  _killed_  him.”  Peter growls and Stiles feels the prick of claws on his belly.  “ _Goddamn_  him.”

“I’m  _tired_  Peter.”  Stiles says abruptly and it’s true, he’s never been more tired.  “I just want to sleep.”

“I’ve got you Stiles.”  Peter tightens his arms, pulls Stiles back against him even more.  “You rest and I’ll watch over you okay?”

“Yeah.”  Stiles whispers dully as he stares at his wall, at the way the afternoon light filters through the curtains and lights up the light blue paint Peter had coated his bedroom walls in.

He tries to sleep but he  _can’t.  He's too afraid of what his dreams will hold now, to afraid of what he will see.  Or what he won't._

Peter just holds him the entire time, just lets him lay there in silence, eyes wide open and unseeing.

Stiles doesn’t cry.

He’s almost sure that he doesn’t have any tears left anyways.

~~~

Peter gets him to call into work the next morning because he still hasn’t slept, or ate, or really moved more than he’s had to since the day before.  And there must be something in his voice because Stiles is firmly told to take the week off and concentrate on getting better.

He would laugh if he had the ability to find anything funny at the moment because he’ll  _never_  get better.

Not from this.

Not from Derek.

Peter calls his dad and Stiles hears it when Peter tells John slowly, gently, that Stiles needs him, that he needs to come over and he needs to make sure no one follows him.

Stiles hears the way his dad’s voice picks up, can hear him yelling through the phone, demanding answers, demanding to know it Stiles is alright.  If someone’s hurt him, if one of the Pack’s responsible.

“John.”  Peter interrupts him calmly.  “ _Physically_  he’s fine.  But you need to come  _now_ , and you can’t tell anyone where Stiles lives and you can’t let them follow you.  Use the scent pouches that Stiles gave us and come now okay?  It’s bad John and he needs you here.”

There’s a beat of silence and then Peter lets out a relieved breath, says a quiet goodbye and hangs up.

~~~

It takes half an hour to get to Stiles’ apartment from Beacon Hills.

John is there in fifteen minutes.

~~~

“Hey buddy.”  His dad’s voice is low, soft and infinitely tender when he sits down on the couch beside where Peter had set him earlier when it was obvious he wasn’t going to sleep.  “Kiddo what happened?”

Stiles opens his mouth, goes to tell his dad what happened, goes to finally be completely honest with him for the first time ever and he just  _can’t_.

He can’t tell his dad that Derek doesn’t want him anymore.  That after eternities living and dying together his soul mate has decided that they don’t match anymore.  He can’t tell his dad that his son is the kind of person who isn’t good enough for the one soul in all of existence who fits him perfectly.

So instead he gives Peter a faintly beseeching look.  After a moments hesitation the wolf sighs and sits down on the coffee table across from his dad.

“What do you know about soul mates?”  Peter is far more serious than Stiles knows his dad has ever seen the man before.  

“I don’t … what?”  John looks confused, keeps switching his attention between Stiles’ slumped form and Peter.  “What does this have to do with what’s wrong with Stiles?”

“Unfortunately, everything.”  Peter runs a hand through his hair and flicks a soft, sad look in his direction.

“Start talking.”  His dad sounds every inch the concerned father and a veteran of law enforcement in that moment.

So Peter talks.

He tells John everything that Stiles can ever remember telling Peter about him and Derek and their bond, the lives they’ve lived together.  Peter tells his dad bluntly, painfully, about how it’s hurt Stiles for years, the uncompleted bond, living so close to Derek but always too far away at the same time.  He coaxes Stiles out of his shirt and down to his boxers so he can see all of the ink Stiles has gotten.  Then Peter tells him about Derek, about how he’d known all along and had hidden it, had pretended not to know.

About how he doesn’t  _want_  Stiles.

It’s early afternoon before the story is done.

“No.”  John says slowly, disbelievingly, and he’s pale, face gone ashy and terrible.  “ _No_.”

“John?”  Peter’s on his feet then, confusion and what looks like worry on his face.

“Dad?”  Stiles sits up then, reaches out towards his dad because even if he feels empty, is broken and shattered, he still loves his dad.

John jumps to his feet then, whirls around and away from them, and launches himself at the nearest wall, starts beating at it with fists that quickly go bloody.  Peter’s on him after a stunned second, gets his arms around John’s chest and drags him away from the wall despite the way he fights him.

“No, no,  _no, no._ ”  John moans over and over again before he finally sags in Peter’s arms.  Even from a distance Stiles can see the way his eyes are glassy and his face is tear streaked.  And then his dad speaks again and Stiles feels his whole world  _freeze._   “ _Claudia_.  Oh God baby I’m so sorry.”

“ _Dad_?”  Stiles hears the break in his own voice and apparently so does his dad because in the next second Peter’s let him go and John is wrapped around him on the couch, strong arms pressing Stiles against his chest.

“I’m sorry,  _I’m sorry_.”  John sobs brokenly into his hair.  “I didn’t know.   _I swear I didn’t know._ ”

“Dad?  What’s going on?”  Stiles feels a sliver of fear snake its way into his heart, the first solid emotion he’s felt since he left Derek’s.  “ _I don’t_   _understand_.”

Peter’s back sitting on the coffee table, brows arched high and confusion clear on his face as well.  It takes John a few long minutes before he’s calm enough to talk but even then he keeps Stiles clutched close to his chest.

“When you were four …” John’s voice breaks and he has to clear his throat sharply before he keeps going.  “When you were four, I got shot.  It’s shouldn’t have been serious, just a hit to the thigh in a home invasion, but the bullet nicked an artery and I was losing blood too fast.  By the time they got me to the hospital I was fading in and out.”

Stiles doesn’t remember his dad getting shot really, but he does remember the story.  He remembers how his dad had told it to him for the first time when he was thirteen and it had all sounded so fascinating and terrifying at the same time.  He’d had nightmares about his dad never making it out of that house for years, still does occasionally on the nights when he doesn’t dream of Derek.

“Later they told me I died on the table, not for long, but for long enough that when I woke up I couldn’t remember certain things.  At first it wasn’t serious, didn’t seem like a big deal, just things in the past like birthday parties or family reunions.  Distant stuff that didn’t really matter, stuff that the doctor told me would come back to me.  And it did, all of it eventually did.  Or at least I thought it did, until right now.”  John’s voice breaks again and the heartbreaking sadness from before is back.

“ _Mom_.”  Stiles whispers as he feels a terrible sort of understanding slither down his spine.

“She would get so upset when she’d bring up something and I couldn’t remember it.  And it would have been alright if some of the things she said weren’t so …  _fantastic_.  She’d talk about flying and battles and the past.  Places and things that couldn’t be  _real_.”  John takes a deep, shaky breath and Stiles feels it when a tear drop lands on the vulnerable curve of his neck.  “I thought it was funny at first but then she kept on and I thought …. I thought she was  _sick_.  I thought there was something wrong with her, with her mind, and I wanted her to get help but she kept insisting she was  _fine_.  She’d  _beg_  me to believe her, to  _remember_  her,  _us_.  Finally one day I snapped, I … I screamed at her, told her to stop with the stories, that it wasn’t  _real_ , that she needed help, that I didn’t remember any or it and that I  _never_  would.  That I didn’t  _want_  to.  And she just  _stopped_ , went quiet and didn’t mention it again for a long time.” 

“No, Dad,  _no_.”  Stiles doesn’t want to hear where this is going, doesn’t want to hear what happens next, because he already knows it.  He lived it, right there beside her in that hospital room.   _He’s living it now_.

“For a while it was alright but then it started going bad again, only this time she was … different.  She’d get angry and violent sometimes, and then she started sleepwalking and some days she couldn’t talk, couldn’t remember things.  I had to work and I couldn’t be there to watch her and even when I was I couldn’t always  _control_  her.  You were so  _young_  and I was scared she was going to hurt someone or herself.”  John sounds like he can barely breath, like he’s about to pass out.  “I had her admitted, took her to the hospital and had them run every test they could think of.  They said it was some kind of neurological disease, said that it was eating away at her brain.  At what made her …  _Claudia_.  They said she wouldn’t get better … and she  _didn’t_.”

There’s a beat of silence in the room and Stiles can see the dawning comprehension on Peter’s face, the aching, raging sadness.

“I didn’t believe her.  I … I pushed her away and it  _killed_  her.”  John whispers brokenly.

Stiles hears a rushing in his ears like his head’s been filled with static.  He feels like he’s standing on the precipice of a great, yawning chasm, teetering on the edge of the abyss.  Because now he  _really_  understands what she had meant all of those years ago.  What she’d  _really_  been trying to tell him when she’d talked about protection and the price he could have to pay.

Because his dad had been her soul mate like Derek was his and he’d rejected her, hadn’t believed her about their bond and had pushed her away.  He’d closed himself off and it had killed her slowly, bit by bit, and his dad had never known any better because his mom had loved him right up until the end.  Because people like them, souls like theirs, could live without their other half, could survive their deaths if they really tried.

But rejection?  A flat out denial of the bond?

That was something that they  _couldn’t_  survive.

Stiles laughs then, can’t help himself.  He curls into the warmth of his dad’s chest and  _laughs_.

Laughs high and breathless and  _wrong_ , because he really is his mother’s son and he’s going to get his wish anyways.  Despite everything said and done Derek’s going to give him  _exactly_  what he wants.  It’s only a matter of time now after all.

Claudia had lasted six years from the moment his dad forgot their bond.  Had lasted six years before the rejection had killed her.  Stiles knows he’s weaker than she was, doesn’t have half a current life time of love and joy to add to his strength.

Derek is going to kill him,  _is_  killing him.

_Stiles isn’t going to make thirty._

He’s going to die just like his mother, his mind and being eaten away by the strain of an unfulfilled, rejected soul bond.  He’s going to lose himself piece by piece until he’s nothing more than a hollowed out shell with infrequent bouts of lucidity.  He’s going to waste away until there’s nothing left.

Stiles wishes his body would just go ahead and get it over with.

He doesn’t really want to do this anymore anyways.

~~~

Stiles finds a strange kind of peace in the idea, after he’s managed to calm his dad down and to convince him and Peter both that going after Derek is the last thing he wants them to do.

That it won’t do any good anyways.

He’s going to die and there’s nothing he can do about it, nothing he  _wants_  to do about it.  He’s tired of fighting, tired of raging against the storm of his life and trying to carve out bits and pieces of happiness for himself.

He’s  _done_.  The show’s over, game’s lost, movie’s finished and now all that’s left is the credits.

And that’s … alright.

~~~

His dad spends the rest of the day and that night there in the apartment with him and Peter, and doesn’t leave until late the next day when Stiles tells him to go home, to get some rest and go back into work.

John doesn’t want to go, too broken up over what had happened to Claudia and what is and will happen to Stiles himself.  Stiles manages to convince him that a sense of normalcy is what he needs at the moment.  And that if he’s at the station he’ll be able to monitor Beacon Hills and give Stiles some forewarning if the Pack comes after him.   _He doesn’t actually think they will but keeping busy is something that’ll do his dad good._

So he goes, reluctantly.  Stiles knows he’s going to get drunk that night, that his dad’s going to fall into a bottle the first chance he gets and for once Stiles can’t blame him.  Isn’t even going to  _think_  about stopping him.

Not this time.

~~~

Stiles manages to drag himself into the shower the next morning without Peter’s prompting.  He feels better now that he  _knows_  he’s going to die, like having a definite outcome has settled some restless part of him down.

That peace lasts him right up until he’s naked and wet and reaching for his shampoo in the shower.  He stretches out his arm and the waltz inked onto his skin catches his attention.

Stiles freezes for a moment, just stares down at it dumbly.

That’s when the anger hits him.  It roars up out of nowhere, rips into him like it has fangs and claws and a desperate desire to tear him apart.

In that second Stiles  _hates_  the tattoo, hates all of them.  He hates having a physical reminder of what’s been taken from him, of what Derek’s willfully taken from the  _both_  of them.  Of the fact that Derek doesn’t want to be with him anymore.

He’s clawing at the ink in the next second, digging his nails into the vulnerable skin of his wrist.  He wants it gone, wants them all gone.  He wants his skin to be smooth and clean and blank again, doesn’t want go to his grave with a body filled with reminders of what a fucking  _failure_  he is.

He wants them  _off_.

“Off.  Off, off, off.  Get off of me.”  He’s mumbling as he claws at his skin and he can’t bring himself to care when his voice slowly begins to get louder and louder until he’s screaming.  “ _Get the fuck off of me._ ”

Peter’s there in the next second.  He rips the shower curtain back, takes one looks at Stiles’ bloody arm, and reaches out and pulls him out of the shower.  Peter wraps his arms around him despite the fact that he’s bloody and wet and naked.

“Stop.  Stiles  _stop_.”  His voice is even,  _commanding_.  “You’re hurting yourself.  Stop it.”

“I don’t  _care_.”  Stiles moans out and fights Peter’s hold to try and scratch at his skin again.  “I’m dying and I want them gone.  I don’t want to die with them on me.  Peter I want them gone.  Make them go away.   _Please_.   _Make them go away_.”

He feels more than hears Peter’s breath catch, but the wolf doesn’t let him go, doesn’t do anything but fold Stiles closer to his chest and hold him there.

“You’re not going to die Stiles.”  Peter says into his ear.

“Yes I am.  I am, Peter.”  Stiles knows it’s true, knows that’s exactly what’s going to happen to him.  “He doesn’t want me and it’s _killing_  me.  Just like it did  _her_.  Dad loved her  _so much_ , still loves her, and he didn’t believe her, rejected her, and it killed her.  Derek doesn’t  _love_  me, doesn’t  _want_  me, and it’s going to  _kill_  me.”

“I’m not going to let you die Stiles.”  Peter promises him harshly.  “I’ll do whatever I have to not to let that happen.  I’ll take his place or I’ll find a way to break the bond or  _something_.  But you’re  _not_  going to die.”

“Peter, please, just let it happen.  I can’t do this anymore.  It hurts too much and I don’t want to do this anymore.  Just let me go.  I’m tired of hurting.”  Stiles begs then because he doesn’t want to live like this anymore, hating himself, his skin and his body and his fucking  _soul_.  He doesn’t want to live knowing that he’s so far from right that his soul mate doesn’t want him.  “Just let me die.  I’m ready.   _I’m so fucking ready Peter_.”

“No.”  Peter pushes him away long enough to shake him hard before he clutches him back to his chest again.  “ _No_.  I’m  _never_  going to let that happen Stiles.  I’m not going to lose you too.”

Stiles doesn’t have the heart to tell Peter that it’s already too late.

Peter lost him the day Derek decided he didn’t want Stiles anymore.

~~~

He doesn’t try to hurt himself again, not because he doesn’t want to but because of the lost and broken look Peter had on his face when he cleaned to blood off of Stiles’ healed arm and reveled the undisturbed tattoo beneath.

His Spark had repaired the damage flawlessly but Stiles knows it won’t be able to fix him when the soul bond finally begins to eat away at his mind.

~~~

Peter never leaves his side, is constantly there to make sure he eats and drinks and sleeps.  Stiles sees the way the man’s running himself ragged even with his werewolf stamina and he doesn’t want to drag Peter down with him.  So he forces himself to perk up, to act like an adult and to  _function_.

He sees the relief Peter can’t hide when he gets up on time, gets dressed, and goes into work for the first time almost a week later.

He comes home that afternoon with a new phone and spends an hour on the couch beside Peter setting the thing up and re-adding contacts and customizations.  Stiles could care less about a new phone but it makes Peter relax some and there’s audible relief in his dad’s voice when he calls him that night from his new number.  In their eyes it’s a way for them to communicate with him if they’re separated and a step towards him pulling himself together and getting back to some form of normalcy.

To Stiles it’s a way to pass the time until his mind fractures and he can die without actually killing himself.

~~~

Time passes in the way that it always does, a slow, plodding procession of days and nights that Stiles has a hard time telling apart sometimes.

Peter throws himself into magic, dives into Stiles’ extensive library of tomes and pamphlets like a man possessed.  He spends hours scouring over obscure references and making increasingly angry sounding phone calls.

Stiles doesn’t help him, doesn’t care to.  He doesn’t care about much of anything these days and he already knows that Peter isn’t going to find anything.  There’s no outside way to break a soul bond.  It survives everything as long as it’s not rejected by both parties.   _There was a pair of priestesses once who’d tried and Stiles had ripped their hearts from their chests and laughed into the red sky at the thought of anyone else being able to take Derek from him.  He’d never thought that Derek would be the one to take himself away instead._   

~~~

His birthday comes and he spends it on the couch with Peter and his dad bracketing him in like bookends, like they can somehow hold him together.  He doesn’t have the heart to tell them that he broke years ago, that he cracked in a way they can’t fix when he was sixteen and laid eyes on Derek for the first time.

His dad tells him quietly that the rest of the Pack is looking for him, that Scott’s frantic and Erica’s been arrested twice for being disorderly in public.  That Jackson comes by the station once a day to prowl around and Isaac has taken to staring at John morosely from a distance when he’s out and about.

John doesn’t mention Derek but he’s there, hanging in the background of Stiles’ life, swaying above his head like a pendulum or a guillotine.

~~~

It takes another month, a lead on a book that  _might_  have some information, and a blood oath from Stiles not to do anything foolish to get Peter to leave the apartment for more than the hours Stiles is at work.

Stiles waits an hour, makes sure that Peter is well and truly gone, and then he sits down on his couch and pulls out his service revolver.  He cleans it carefully, loads it with hands that are as steady as stone, and then gently slips the barrel between his lips.

He promised Peter he wouldn’t do anything foolish but this … this is the smartest thing he’s done in  _years_.

He sits there for an hour, gun in his mouth, finger hovering over the trigger and mind dazed.

It’s only the way he’s trained himself not to jump over the years that the unexpected knock on the door doesn’t jolt him enough to pull the trigger.

He carefully clicks on the safety, puts the gun back in its box and then stands and goes for the door.  He already knows who is on the other side and he doesn’t know how he was found but a part of him has been waiting for it for weeks now.

He just never thought it would be  _Boyd_  who’d track him down first.

Stiles doesn’t say anything when he opens the door, just steps back, lets Boyd inside, and goes back to his spot on the couch.  Boyd follows him silently and Stiles hears the way his steps falter for a second when he sees the gun on the coffee table before he settles down beside him.

They sit there in a sort of companionable silence for a while.  Boyd and he were never the closest members of the Pack but there had always been a sort of gentle understanding and grudging affection between them once everything had settled down.  Boyd loved Erica and Stiles and Erica had always got along like a house on fire and he’d learned to accept Stiles because of that.

“Peter tried to kill Derek.”  Boyd’s deep voice finally breaks the silence and Stiles can’t help but close his eyes and sigh.  “That day at the house, after you left.  He went after Derek and I’d never seen him so angry, so  _vicious_.  He tore into Derek and they fucked up the entire kitchen and the living room.  I’m pretty sure if Derek wasn’t an Alpha he’d probably be dead, hell I think he would be anyways if we hadn’t pulled Peter off of him.  He barely put up a fight as it was, only hit Peter a couple of times.”

“I didn’t mean for them to fight.  I didn’t want that.”  Stiles hadn’t, still didn’t.  He was going to die and he wanted it to happen without the guilt of Peter and Derek fighting and hurting each other over him.  He wasn’t worth that no matter what Peter said.

“We know that.”  Boyd reaches out and cups the ball of Stiles’ shoulder in the palm of one large hand.  “No matter what’s happened we all know you never wanted anyone to get hurt.  We just didn’t understand what was happening and afterwards Peter only told us a little bit and you wouldn’t pick up your phone and no one could find either one of you.”

“But you did.  You found me.”  He can admit that he’s curious about that.  He’d covered his own tracks and both Peter and his dad had used the scent negating sachets he’d given them ages ago so they couldn’t be tracked.

“Danny wasn’t the only one good with computers before he moved away.  I hacked the Lo-Jack on your dad’s patrol car and figured this would be the only place you could be.”  Boyd sounds proud for a moment and Stiles quirks a small smile.  “I didn’t tell the others though, they think I’m looking for new furniture for the house.  Told them I wanted some time on my own.”

“Smart.  Always knew you were more cunning than you let on.”

“Can I ask you something?  Something that you might not want to answer?”  Boyd asks gently, softly, and Stiles can’t help but reach over and pat him on the shoulder.  It’s strange to see the normally stoic and confident beta so unsure of himself.

“You can ask me anything Boyd.  You know I’ve always been an open book.”

“But you’re not.”  Boyd looks him directly in the eye then.  “You’ve got secrets on top of secrets and I’m just now realizing how little we all really know you.”

Stiles can’t refute that, can’t deny it now, not when he doesn’t have the will or the need to keep up the charade he’s carried on for years.  So instead he shrugs and looks at Boyd expectantly.

“This thing between you and Derek.  It’s magic right?  Or something like that, something special?  Peter said you were soul mates, kept screaming it at Derek when they were fighting, telling him that he was supposed to be there for you and that he was hurting you,  _killing_  you.  And then there’s all of the things you said to Derek, all of the stuff that sounded like this isn’t the first time you guys have met.”  Boyd hesitates for a second and then powers through.  “Could you tell me about that, about how you knew?”

Stiles has to swallow hard before he can answer.

“It was … it’s always been this way between us.  We always find each other no matter what.  No matter when or where we’re born we always eventually find each other, come together somehow.  I didn’t remember at first, but I knew Derek was special the first time I saw him, knew that he was what, who, I’d been waiting for.  And then I fell in love with him, really in love with him and I started to dream, started to  _remember_.  It’s always like that too, we find each other first and then we remember who we were, who we’ve been.”

“When did that happen?”  There’s genuine curiosity in Boyd’s voice.  “When did you realize you loved him?  When did you start remembering all of that stuff this time?”

“You remember the kanima?  That night Jackson trapped us in the pool.  That was the night I knew I loved him, was going to go down with him if Scott hadn’t showed up.  I started remembering right after that.”  And God those first dreams had scared him.  He’d been so confused until he’d realized what was happening.

“We were kids, shit you were  _sixteen_.  It’s been that long?”  Boyd sounds blown away.

“Longer.”  Stiles smiles humorlessly and empty.  “I was sixteen in this life when I remembered him, fell in love with him.  But I’ve loved him for more lives than I can count.”

“We never … I mean we all thought you did.  That you two would end up together, you just always seemed to  _work_.  But neither one of you ever made a real move.  And you never said anything, not even to Scott.  And then you’d fight and he’s our Alpha and we just …”

“It’s okay Boyd.  I know.  I’m not mad at you guys.”  Stiles rakes his free hand through his hair and huffs out a slightly frustrated breath.  “Not anymore at least.  I know I can’t expect you guys to understand about me and Derek and that you’re gonna have his back because he’s your Alpha and it’s all so complicated anyways.  So don’t worry about it.”

“We miss you.  You know that right?  Even Jackson, even if he won’t admit it.  It feels different now, not like before when you’d just skip meetings and stuff.  It feels more … permanent this time somehow.”  Boyd’s voice sounds uneasy.

“It’s the Pack ties fluctuating from me and Peter breaking away.”  Stiles had tried to get Peter to keep his bond to the Pack strong, but Peter hadn’t listened this time.  Even now he could feel the ties that held them all together unraveling slowly.  He just hopes that Peter will see reason and go back once he’s dead.  “It’ll settle down after I’m gone.”

“You’re leaving?”  Boyd is suddenly worried sounding, deep voice unsteady and the shoulder beneath Stiles’ hand trembles.  “When?  Where are you going?  Are you coming back?”

“Yeah.  It won’t be for a while but I’ll be leaving eventually.”  Stiles’ breathing is deep, even, his heartbeat doesn’t stutter.  He’s not lying, he is leaving but just not in the way Boyd thinks he is.  “It’s going to be like an extended vacation.  I’m not sure where I’ll end up really but I’ll be gone for … a long time I think.”  He’s not sure when or if he’ll come back again, if his cycle of rebirth is tied directly to his and Derek’s connection.  He kind of hopes it is because he doesn’t look forward to having to do this again and again.

“Oh.”  Boyd’s hands clench in the fabric of his pants.  “There’s nothing I can say that’ll change your mind is there?”

“No.”  Stiles is set on this path and there’s nothing they can do to change what’s going to happen.  What  _needs_  to happen.

“Okay.”  Boyd sits still for a second and then he suddenly twists on the couch and wraps his arms around Stiles, pulls him close to his chest and just breaths him in deeply.  “ _Okay_.”

They stay there, wrapped up together on the couch as Stiles pretends like he can’t feel the way Boyd’s big chest shudders beneath his ear, how he can feel the way the nape of his neck has gone wet.

Finally, what feels like hours later, Boyd rubs his face against Stiles’ hair and then pulls away and slowly gets to his feet.  They stare at each other for a second and there’s a soft, sad look in Boyd’s eyes.

“When did you move here Stiles?”  Boyd asks gently, tenderly.  “When did you leave Beacon Hills?”

“Months ago.”  Stiles answers him honestly and watches the way Boyd sucks in a shallow breath and clenches his eyes shut.

“I won’t tell the others were you are.  I can’t stop them if they find you on their own, but I won’t tell them anything.  Especially not Derek.  They’ll smell you on me but I won’t say anything.”  Boyd’s eyes are hard when he opens them and there’s glint there that makes Stiles think that Boyd would be a good Alpha one day.  “He looks like hell you know?  Doesn’t talk or eat or do much of anything anymore.  Sometimes he goes out into the preserve and we don’t see him for days, but we hear him at night, howling.”

“Boyd…”  Stiles can’t hear this, doesn’t want to hear it.  Doesn’t want to admit the way his heart clenches and  _aches_  at the thought of Derek so sad and alone out in the forest.  Hurting.  He doesn’t want to feel any of the things that remind him that no matter what has happened, no matter what he tells himself or others or the fact that Derek doesn’t want him anymore, he still  _loves_  Derek.

God he’s  _never_  going to stop loving him and that loved has  _ruined_  Stiles.

“He’s killing himself over this, and I don’t know why he did it, why he would  _want_  to do it, but he’s hurting too no matter what he says.  But I won’t tell him about you.  I won’t tell him anything.  Because he’s my Alpha and I’ll never forget that but … I think he deserves this … for what he’s done to you.”  Boyd reaches down and runs a hand slowly through Stiles’ hair.  “I think we all deserve this for what we’ve done to you.”

Boyd makes his way towards the front door then, reaches out and pulls it open and goes to leave.

“Boyd.”  Stiles stops him before he can walk all the way out of the apartment.  “Can you do me a favor?”

“Anything.”

“When I’m … after I’ve left, will you make sure Peter’s alright?  Him and my dad?  I know Scott will watch over Dad pretty well and so will Melissa but they both get busy and you know Scott can be forgetful.  So can you just make sure my dad’s okay and that Peter’s not left out on his own?  I want them both safe.”  Boyd is strong, capable, and Stiles knows that he’ll keep his promise and will watch over them both if he agrees.

“Peter’s not going with you?  I thought he would.  I mean you two are so close we all figured you were … well together.  Even with the thing between you and Derek.  We figured you and Peter had a thing or something.”  Boyd stares at him then, dark brow arched up and face surprised.

“Peter loves me and I do love him but it’s not, we’re not … we’ve never been …” Stiles trails off slightly in frustration and then forces himself to admit something deep and profoundly personal.  “I’ve never been with anyone,  _ever_.”

“ _Never_?”  Boyd looks and sounds almost alarmingly shocked but Stiles just shuffles his feet and presses on.

“Never.  I just couldn’t.  Not when they weren’t Derek, not when it wasn’t him you know?”  He’d been obsessed with Lydia when he was younger but that had been before, before Derek and before everything else.  Afterwards it had never seemed right to think of being with anyone else and he’d never felt the urge to try.  “So no, Peter’s not going with me this time.”

“I’ll do my best then.  It’s the least I can do Stiles.  You’ll let me know when you come back though right, let us all know you’re alright?”  Stiles forces himself to nod and is grateful for the way his heart doesn’t betray him.

“Thanks Boyd, you’re a good friend, a good Pack mate.”  He really is too.  Boyd’s a perfect example of the bite gone right.

Stiles is surprised when Boyd’s eyes tighten and his face goes slightly angry.

“I’m  _not_.”  Boyd rasps suddenly.  “I’m not a good friend or a good Pack mate.”

“Yes you are.  Why would you say that?”

“I took the bite because I didn’t want to be alone anymore, because I couldn’t stand coming home every day to a family who blamed me for losing my sister at the ice rink.  Because I couldn’t stop blaming myself.  I took the bite because I was tired of sitting at that lunch table alone every day.  I was so happy when it took, when I got a new family, friends, people to move forward with.”  Boyd looks him directly in the eye again and Stiles feels his breath catch at the hurt there before Boyd turns and steps across the doorway and into the hall of the apartment building.  “If I was a good friend, if any of us were, we would have all realized that we’d left  _you_  sitting at that table by yourself instead.  If I was a good Pack mate I would have realized how much you  _needed_  us.  But I didn’t and I don’t think I’ll  _ever_  forgive myself for that.”

Stiles is still standing in the same spot, staring at the door Boyd closed behind him, when Peter comes back to the apartment that night.

~~~

Scott finds him next, shows up at the front door with a bouquet of daisies and a crooked tie half an hour after Stiles’ dad leaves one night.  He’s sweaty and disheveled, there’s a streak of what looks like grease on his blue dress shirt and his hair is hanging limp across his forehead.

Peter takes one look at him, huffs, and steps back to him slink into the apartment.

Stiles just stares at him from his place in the kitchen as Scott shuffles forward until he’s a foot away from Stiles and abruptly thrusts the flowers out in his direction.  Stiles takes then automatically, looks down at the ragged, half wilted mess of flowers and then back up at a fidgeting Scott with a brow arched high in silent question.

“Derek’s a butt head and so are the rest of us and I hid in the trunk of your dad’s car for nine and a half hours because I love you and _I’m sorry_.”  Scott lets it all out in a rush, like he’s afraid that if he stops to take a breath Stiles won’t let him finish.

The flowers hit the floor and Stiles has his arms around Scott’s neck almost before he realizes he’s even moved.  Scott holds him back just as tightly and all Stiles can think is that he’s missed this, missed Scott.

And that his dad needs to keep a better track of his car or before long everyone will know where Stiles and Peter are.

~~~

Everything’s alright for a while, has settled into a new kind of normal that isn’t really good but Stiles is acutely aware of the fact that it could be worse.

He asks Scott not to come back to the apartment but gives him his new number, tells him that he’ll answer his texts and not to worry.  Scott doesn’t like it but there must be something n Stiles’ face that makes him agree.

So it’s not good but it is more, settled somehow, calmer than before.

~~~

And then one morning Stiles wakes up and for almost ten whole minutes has absolutely no idea where he is.  He doesn’t recognize the bed or the walls or even the stretched and faded shirt he’s wearing.  He doesn’t recognize  _anything_.

He’s terrified and it’s only the fact that Peter’s in the kitchen when he finally forces himself to leave the strange bedroom that keeps him from panicking.  His memory comes back to him a few minutes after that and he doesn’t tell anyone what happened.

Doesn’t tell his dad or Peter.  Can’t.

He tells himself that if he doesn’t admit it happened, if he keeps it to himself, it won’t be so  _real._

~~~

Then it happens again a week later and he can’t deny it anymore, can’t pretend it hasn’t happened because he knows exactly what it means.

~~~

That night Stiles is lying in bed with Peter.  They’re wrapped up in each other like they always are and Stiles feels … different than he had before.  He feels like a clock winding down, like a puppet on its last string, and he knows he has to say something 

“It’s starting.”  He sighs out into the dark of the bedroom and feels Peter abruptly stiffen and tighten his arms around his waist.  “I can feel it.  It’s … I’m going to go fast, faster than Mom did.”

“No.  It’s not going to happen at all Stiles.”  Peter sounds desperate, almost pleading, like he needs Stiles to believe it so that he can.  “I told you I’d find a way to fix this.”

“We both know it isn’t going to happen Peter.  There is no  _fix_  for this.  Not one either me or you can pull off.”  Stiles nestles back into Peter’s heat, closes his eyes and draws comfort from the familiar figure.   _Even if a part of him wishes it was Derek there instead._   “It just  _is_  Peter.”

“There has to be something I can do.  Something.”  The side of his neck grows damp and suddenly Stiles realizes that  _Peter_  is crying and he feels like someone’s cut his lungs from his chest because he can’t  _breathe_.  Peter, morally ambiguous, shades of gray, creepy and inappropriate  _Peter_ , is  _crying_.  For him, for Stiles, for the fact that there’s nothing they can do to stop the inevitable.

“Just stay with me.”  It’s all that Stiles can think of, all he can think to say because it’s all that can be done.  His time’s running down and the only thing they can do is to make sure he doesn’t have to spend it all alone.  “Even if I can’t remember you, or I think I’m sixteen again, or I can’t remember my name.  Just stay with me.”

“I will.  I promise I will.”  Peter presses a small, chaste kiss the shell of his ear, one of the few gestures of affection beyond hugging and cuddling that he allows himself.  “I’ll stay with you.”

“Don’t leave me alone.”  Stiles feels it build up in his chest, feels like a stone is crushing his ribs and like the whole world is crashing down on top of him.  All of the peace he’d previously had, the calm understanding he thought he had reached is abruptly and cruelly gone.   _He’s dying, oh God he’s really dying.  He doesn’t want to die alone.  He doesn’t want to die at all._   “I … I don’t want to die alone Peter, not when I’m not sure if I’ll wake up that way too.”

“You won’t.  I promise you won’t be alone.”  Peter forces him to roll over, to bury his nose in the hollow of Peter’s throat.  “I’ll be with you until the end.”

~~~

Stiles starts having nightmares after that, wakes up with Peter’s frantic face above his and his own screams still echoing in the apartment.  He wakes up with the bed levitating and the room destroyed thanks to the way his Spark flares in response to his terror.

One afternoon he can’t speak for an entire two hours, just loses the ability to form words.

For an afternoon about a week later he can’t remember how to read.

Stiles feels helpless, useless, in those moments and he hopes that it won't get worse.

But he knows it will.

And it does.

~~~

He quits his job in May _, two months past twenty-four and who knows how many weeks from the grave_ , because he can’t trust himself with a gun anymore.  He can’t handle his responsibilities as a deputy when he periodically forgets how to drive or what day it is or how he got to work in the first place.

He’s fading fast, just like he thought he would.  He’s still has more lucid moments than not but the times when he’s confused or unable to function properly are slowly beginning to multiple.

He spends most of his time scared.  Scared of his dreams and the way he could go to sleep fine and wake up two days later without any memory of what’s happened.  Scared of how he’s capable of forgetting huge chunks of time, terrified about what could happen during one of his episodes.

~~~

And then one day he wakes up and he doesn’t remember Peter.

Or rather he does, just not  _his_  Peter, not the sharp tongued but caring wolf who has stuck by his side for so long now.

Instead he remembers  _Alpha Peter,_  the one who’d hurt his friends, the one who’d killed so many people and had held his wrist to his mouth and taunted Stiles about wanting the bite.

So when he wakes up in a strange place, in a strange bed and clothes with that guy beside him?

Well it doesn’t end well.

They’re both bloody by the time his memory comes back, Peter’s dangerously close to losing an eye and Stiles can’t feel his right arm.  His Spark is violent and vicious beneath his skin, angry and desperate to protect him.  He feels sick.

“I want my dad.”  The words slip out without his permission but as soon as he says them Stiles feels the truth in them like he’s been punched in the gut.   _He’s terrified and he’s dying and he wants his dad._  “I want to go home.  Take me home Peter.  I want to die at home.” 

Peter reaches out to him, swipes his thumb through the blood that’s pooled at the corner of his mouth, and then climbs to his feet and reaches for his phone.

One call, two hours and a handful of minutes later, Stiles is on his way back to his dad’s house.

Back to Beacon Hills.

Back home.

Back to die.

~~~

Being back in his dad’s house gives him a sense of comfort.  He spends his days holed up in his room or in the kitchen but he feels calmer and more at ease than he has in weeks, months,  _years_.

Surprisingly his deterioration seems to slow down for a bit.  Stiles has a string of back to back days where he’s fine, where he’s normal and calm and almost whole.  Still he takes to leaving himself notes, tapes one to his nightstand each night before he goes to sleep.

_Your name is Stiles, today is Tuesday.  You’re safe.  You have what Mom had._

His dad watches him like a hawk, has a sad, desperate look in his eyes every time he looks at Stiles lately or sees the notes he’s taken to leaving himself.  Stiles doesn’t say anything, not even to Peter, doesn’t have to.  All three of them know that John’s thinking about Claudia, that his dad is stuck on the realization of what his disbelief had cost them all.

~~~

He wakes up one morning and doesn’t remember how to walk, can’t get his legs to work or hold him up.  So he sits in his bed, stares at Peter’s sleeping face beside him and waits for him to wake up.  After about five or six minutes Peter blinks and is suddenly awake and alert.  He pushes himself up on the bed beside Stiles, chest bare and thick with muscle and shoulders tense.

“What’s wrong?”  Peter is astute when it comes to Stiles, always has been really, and he seems to know each time something’s gone wrong.

“My legs.”  Stiles says, surprisingly calm, a small self-deprecating smile on his face.  “You’re going to have to play my wolf-in-shining-fur and carry me downstairs.”

Peter’s eyes go sharp and then abruptly sad but he covers it with his trademark smarmy grin.  “Always a pleasure to have you in my arms little fox.  You know that.”

They both grin but even if they say nothing about it they can both tell that they don’t mean it.  They’re both masking their pain and their hurt behind the expression.  Still Peter gets him up, wraps him in the comforter that smells so very strongly of them both, and carries him effortlessly down the stairs.

They settle down on the couch, the house quiet around them except for the sound of the morning news on the television.  Stiles is pathetically grateful that his dad is pulling the early shift and has been out of the house for hours already.  He doesn’t want him to see him like this, so weak and helpless on top of everything else he’s already seen.

They spend the day like that together, Stiles tucked close to Peter’s side, his head on his shoulder as they watch movies and bicker quietly about some of the tomes and spell books they’ve both read.

The quiet, almost peaceful feel of the day is shattered when Stiles feels Lydia approach from a distance, accompanied, surprisingly, by Jackson.  Stiles can still sense them even with the way the Pack ties between them and Peter and himself have dwindled away to almost nothing.  He’s almost completely sure that he’ll always be able to sense them, that his ties to Derek  _no matter how he’s been rejected_ will make sure of it.

When the doorbell rings Peter takes his time to tuck the blanket tighter around Stiles’ legs, runs his fingers through Stiles already messy hair, and then strolls to the front door.  His customary swagger is readily apparent, as is the fact that he’s clad only in a pair of low cut, loose fitting pants.  He looks disheveled and sexy and utterly comfortable walking around half naked in Stiles’ childhood home.

In that moment Stiles can see why everyone might have thought he and Peter were a thing.

Even if they aren’t and never have been.

“Dear Lydia, I was wondering when you’d grace us with your beauty.”  Peter drawls from where Stiles can just see him leaning against the side of the front door.  “And you’ve brought everyone’s favorite former reptile with you too.  To what do we owe the pleasure?”

“We want to see Stiles and if you don’t move I have a vial of wolfsbane and a not so repressed desire to do you serious bodily harm that says I can make you.”  Lydia’s voice is as calm and collected as it ever is but Stiles can hear an underlying note of frustration and pain that makes him call Peter’s name softly.

Peter sighs but steps back and gestures to two into the house before he pushes the door closed behind them and saunters his way back to the couch to settle back in his place beside Stiles.

Lydia, never one to allow herself to look or feel awkward, commandeers his dad’s recliner like a queen settling down on a throne.  Jackson stands behind her like a sentinel but his eyes are completely focused on Stiles.

“You look like hell.”  Jackson blurts out and Lydia huffs a sigh of irritation but doesn’t disagree.

“Good to see you too Jackson, always nice to know you haven’t lost your unique brand of tact.”  Stile shoots back but it lacks the heat that would have once been between the two of them.  Honestly it’s nice to have face to face confirmation that the two of them are doing good.

“Boyd said you were leaving.”  Lydia cuts to the point with the precision and viciousness that Stiles had first come to adore about her years ago.  “He said you were leaving weeks ago but you’re back now, back in town and staying here.  Are you back for good?”

“No.”  Stiles says softly, gently, and doesn’t let on to the way Peter’s fingers spasm harshly where they’re wrapped around his shoulder.  “I’m still leaving.  I just wanted to spend some face to face time with Dad before I go.  Soak up home a bit before I head off.”

“You’re lying.”  Lydia shares a quick but significant look with Jackson over her shoulder and then turns back towards Stiles and stares him in the eyes, brows furrowed and face achingly serious.  “I’m not sure how and I’m not sure why, but you’re lying Stiles.  You’re heartbeat might sound steady to Jackson but  _you’re lying_  and I want to know why.”

“Lydia.”  Stiles keeps his voice gentle, keeps his tone even and soothing like he’s taken to doing with his dad.  “Just … don’t.  I’m asking you nicely.  Don’t go digging for answers you don’t want to know.”

“ _Stiles_.”  Lydia’s eyes are shockingly sad and damp around the edges and it makes something in Stiles’ chest twist.

He wants to go to her, to wrap her in a hug until the sadness in her face fades away but he can’t.  He’s legs don’t work at the moment after all and he’s not eager to let anyone besides Peter in on that fact.

Lydia and Jackson stay for a few more hours after that.  Lydia determinedly makes small talk while Jackson watches Stiles with an unblinking intensity that’s an obvious hold over from his time as a kanima.

No one mentions Derek although Stiles can tell they both want to, can see the questions in their faces.  He’s grateful that they both refrain, that they see something in his face that makes them stop before they ever bring him up.

When they go to leave Jackson is, surprisingly enough, the one who swoops down and wraps Stiles in a tight hug.  He presses his face into the curve of Stiles’ shoulder and unsubtly inhales his scent.  Stiles just sighs and presses his lips softly against Jackson’s temple and runs his hand through the wolf’s soft hair.

They stay that way for a few seconds and then Jackson pulls back, bumps their foreheads together one last time and then marches his way towards the front door.  Lydia trails after him slowly and there’s a sadness in her face when she leans down and presses a kiss to Stiles’ forehead as she makes her way pass the couch.

After they’re well out of ear shot Peter holds him, rubs large, strong hands down the tattooed line of his spine as he cries and bites at Peter’s shoulder to muffle his sobs.

~~~

Time marches on.

There’s a growing sadness in Peter and John’s faces as Stiles fluctuates between lucidity and various stages of delirium.  He’s lucky only on the fact that even when the Pack begins to trickle by the house in ones or twos none of them catch him in the middle of an episode.

Not even Isaac who shows up in the middle of the night one weekend.  He comes in through Stiles’ window, his eyes wild and claws long as he paces in front of Stiles’ bed and growls every time Peter so much as shifts.

It takes Stiles an hour and a half to coax Isaac into the bed and then the curly-haired beta insinuates himself between Stiles and Peter in a move that makes the older wolf huff and roll his eyes.  Stiles falls asleep to Isaac obsessively petting his hair and whining as he practically wraps himself around him.

Isaac is gone the next morning but Stiles can’t help but smile at the memory and wonder idly how much longer he’ll be able to keep his secret.

~~~

It’s Erica that finally comes out and says something.  Beautiful, blunt Erica who stopped pulling her punches the moment she got the bite and was no longer trapped in her own body.

Like Isaac she comes in through his window one night, but unlike Isaac she does it on one of the rare nights that Peter isn’t there.  For once Stiles is alone in the house for a few hours, partially because Peter had found another tome he wanted to check out and mainly because he’d begged for the alone time.

She slinks inside, all curls and ruby red lips despite how late it is, and the way she stops for a second and just  _looks_  at Stiles makes him vaguely uncomfortable.

“ _Oh_.”  Erica breathes the word out and then she’s on the bed beside him, arms wrapped around his shoulders as she pulls him down to rest against the ample swell of her chest.  “Oh baby,  _no.”_

“Erica?”  Stiles is confused and worried because he hasn’t heard her so upset and heartbroken since that time they’d all thought Boyd had been killed.  “What’s wrong?”

“You’re not leaving, you’re  _dying_.”  Erica curls herself around him as she whispers into the shell of his ear and Stiles feels his whole world freeze around him.  “You’re dying and you didn’t tell me and  _you’re not allowed to die Stiles._ ”

“How did you know?”  Stiles stutters out the question, hardly able to believe that out of everyone Erica is the one who picked up on the truth.

“Because I know what it looks like.”  Erica squeezes him tighter and Stiles can feel the tell-tale hitch of her breath from where his ear is pressed against her chest.  “I know what it  _feels_  like.  I saw it in the mirror every morning before I took the bite.  I know what it’s like to be helpless while your body eats away at you.”

“You can’t tell them.”  Stiles feels panic well up inside of him then because he’s not prepared to deal with everyone else knowing.  “Erica you can’t tell them.   _Please_.”

“They need to know.”  Erica snarls.  “They need to know so we can  _fix_  this.”

“You can’t Erica.”  Stiles practically pleads with her.  “There’s no fixing this.  There isn’t.  It just is.  I’m dying and you can’t fix me.  Not from this.”

“It’s not right.”  Stiles hasn’t heard her so angry, so fierce, in such a long time but he can also tell by the slump of her shoulders that she’ll keep it to herself.  For at least a little while.  “It’s not fair.  I don’t want to lose you.  None of us do.  Not like this.  You deserve better than this.  ”

Stiles doesn’t say anything, just hums low in his throat and lets her hold him tighter.

~~~

He can’t say for sure that he deserves better, is actually pretty sure that he doesn’t.  Because if he did then wouldn’t he be okay, wouldn’t things have turned out different?  If he was better, deserved better, wouldn’t Derek still want him?

He doesn’t think he wants to know the answer to that either.

~~~

Stiles wakes up one morning a week or so later confused and disorientated.  He rolls over and the first thing he sees is the post-it note on the side of his lamp.

_You’re name is Stiles, it’s Friday.  You’re safe.  You have what Mom did._

He picks the note up and stumbles to his feet as he scrubs at his eyes with his free hand.  His body feels strange, like he’s too small for his skin or something but he pushes the sensation down and away and stumbles his way downstairs calling out for his dad the entire time.

His dad is in the kitchen with another man that Stiles doesn’t recognize but has to admit looks kind of familiar.  Stiles ignores him though, even with the way the man perks up when he walks into the room and then narrows his eyes at the post-it Stiles has clenched between his fingertips.

He has more pressing issues.

“Daddy?”  Stiles is shocked by how his own voice sounds but he pushes forward anyways.  His dad stiffens like he’s been shot and abruptly turns to face Stiles head on.

“Stiles?”  His dad’s shoulders are stiff and his face is pale.  “What’s wrong kiddo?”

“This note was on my lamp.”  Stiles waves the post-it in the air beside him.  “I don’t understand it.  What’s wrong with Mom?  Is she sick?”

It takes Stiles two hours to come back to himself good enough to understand why his dad wraps him up in a crushing hug with a wounded sound and refuses to let him go.

Stiles cries himself to sleep that night and every night for the next week straight, face buried in Peter’s neck, teeth clenched around his shoulder to muffle his sobs.

He cries until he can’t feel anything anymore, until he’s numb inside again in that way he’s distantly aware of.

It’s a cold and bitter comfort but it’s all he has at the moment.

That numbness and the anchoring feel of Peter’s strong, warm arms around him.

It’s not enough, Stiles knows that, but he’s so damn  _grateful_  to have anything at all anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm leaning towards Derek/Stiles & Peter/Stiles but I'm still open to suggestions so let me know in a review or stop by Tumblr and tell me what you think


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